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Barry John | |
|---|---|
 John in September 2022 | |
| Born | 1944 (age 81–82) Coventry, England |
| Citizenship | United Kingdom(1944–2012) India(2012–present) |
| Occupations |
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Dr. Barry John (born 1944) is an Indian theatre director, actor, andacting coach. Some of his students becameBollywood actors includingShah Rukh Khan,Sanjay Sujitabh,Manoj Bajpayee,Varun Dhawan,Dulquer Salmaan,Kunal Kapoor,Rana Daggubati,Samir Soni andShiney Ahuja, and actresses, such asJacqueline Fernandez,Richa Chadha,Dia Mirza, andPlabita Borthakur,[1][2] as well as Hollywood actors includingFreida Pinto[3] and one of the top 10 US media companies CEOSamir Arora. He has been based in India since 1969. After moving to Mumbai his acting school was opened in Mumbai as 'The Barry John Acting Studio'. He continues to train actors at his institute, ‘The Free Birds Collective’ situated inAndheri, Mumbai.[4]
In January 2025, Barry John was honored with thePadma Shri, India's fourth-highest civilian award, by theGovernment of India.[5][6]
He was also awarded the 1993Sangeet Natak Akademi Award for Theatre Direction bySangeet Natak Akademi, India's National Academy for Music, Dance and Theatre, and also theSahitya Kala Parishad Award.[citation needed]
Barry John was born in 1944 inCoventry,Warwickshire (now in theWest Midlands), England.[7] His father, an engineer by profession, joined the navy during World War II and his mother was a home-maker. He had a younger sister, Christine.[citation needed]
By the age of 12, he had started selling newspapers, and pursued theatre in the evenings. At 15, his father fixed up a job for him at the factory where he worked. After finishing his schooling, he moved to London, but unable to find place in acting schools, he joinedLeeds University, where he trained to become a theatre teacher.[8]
Based in India since the 1970s, John became an Indian citizen in 2012.[9]
Deeply influenced by India, and its culture, during thehippie era, he even delved into theUpanishads. Then in 1968, PanditRavi Shankar staged a concert at the Coventry Cathedral, a few days later, he saw an ad in the newspapers for a teaching job in India, to which he applied. Thus aged 22 he landed inBangalore, where he stayed for the next two years, teaching English during the day at Regional Institute of English on Cunningham Road, and doing radio programmes. Evenings were for amateur theatre, with Bangalore Amateur Dramatics Society and the Bangalore Little Theatre. After arriving in Delhi in 1970, he joined the'Yatrik' theatre group, staying at theYMCA hostel and working as a freelance teacher in schools and colleges.
In 1973, he founded the Theatre Action Group (TAG), withSiddharth Basu,Roshan Seth,Lilette Dubey,Mira Nair,Manohar Singh,Pamela Rooks,Surekha Sikri, andPankaj Kapoor, among other. The group performed various forms of drama until 1977, when John joined the faculty of theNational School of Drama,Delhi (1977–80), and later became the Founder-Director of the NSD's Theatre in Education Company (TIE)(1989).[8][10] He has been conducting theatre workshops ever since and in 1997, opened the 'Imago Acting School' in Delhi.
He also appeared in a few films, likeSatyajit Ray'sShatranj Ke Khilari (The Chess Players) (1977),Richard Attenborough'sGandhi (1982),Massey Sahib (1985). He also acted in several of his own productions, as well as that of other directors, includingRoysten Abel'sOthello a Play in Black and White. In 2010, he appeared inTere Bin Laden in the role of a United States security general.[11]
In 2007, he moved to Mumbai, where his acting school was opened as 'Barry John Acting Studio',[12][13] in the same year, he also wrote a book "Playing for Real", published by Macmillan, a chronicle of 178 drama exercises for children, and co-authored by Rajan Chawla and Cathy Yogin, students of his Imago Theatre in Education Company.[14]
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1977 | Chess Players | ||
| 1982 | Gandhi | Police Superintendent | |
| 1986 | Massey Sahib | Charles Adam | |
| 1992 | Miss Beatty's Children | John Westcott | |
| 2000 | Shaheed Udham Singh | Michael Atlee | |
| 2003 | In Othello | Barry / Iago | |
| 2007 | The Great Indian Butterfly | ||
| 2009 | Thanks Maa | Priest | |
| 2010 | Teen Patti | ||
| 2010 | Tere Bin Laden | Ted Wood | |
| 2012 | Chittagong | Wilkinson | |
| 2014 | M Cream | Vishnu Das |