World Theater Day 2025: Amit Sial To Vijay Varma, Hindi OTT Stars Who Mastered the Stage Before the Screen

World Theater Day 2025: Every year 27th of March is celebrated as World Theater Day to celebrate the unifying spectacle of the stage that brings together various arts and skills from writing to music and visuals in harmony with a play to stir something in the audience. Theaters have played a key role in shaping society while holding a mirror to it too. In the digital world of OTTs and AI, many underscore the slowly fading theatrical community due to the dissociating interest in the field. However the advancement of digital streaming platforms has also aided theater artists by providing them with ample opportunity in the entertainment industry without the need to have the backing of a godfather.  

So on the occasion of World Theater Day, let’s see which of your favorite OTT stars have actually acted on a stage before the screen. 

Amit Sial 

Amit Sial has been a part of popular web series like Jamtara on Netflix, Maharani on SonyLiv, and Inside Edge and Mirzapur on Prime Video. The actor has been a part of several stage productions from a very young age with the most notable work being in the lead role of Tim Supple's adapted version of Salman Rushdie's Haround. 

 

 

 

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Pankaj Tripathi

The man who popularised OTT and has been an icon of the digital streaming industry since Sacred Games on Netflix. He is an alumnus of the National School of Drama and has been a part of many village street plays. 

 

 

 

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Jaideep Ahlawat 

Famous for the portrayal of Inspector Hathi Ram Chaudhary in Amazon Prime Video’s Paatal Lok, Jaideep Ahlawat forayed into the sphere of acting with theater, performing in plays in Punjab and Haryana. He then went to the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) for formal training.

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Abhishek Banerjee 

Acclaimed for his roles in Paatal Lok and Mirzapur on Prime Video, Abhishek Banerjee began his career in acting in the Delhi theater group. He later moved to Mumbai to pursue film in Bollywood. 

 

 

 

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Vijay Varma 

Vijay Varma has become a popular face of OTT shows and films. Varma started his acting journey with theater in Hyderabad. He also boasts of being an alumnus of FTII. 

 

 

 

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Theater has been the foundation for these OTT artists proving that the importance of the medium still stands relevant. Theater does not have to compete with digital media because it aids them.