Introducing Raëll Padamsee’s Academy for Creative Expression (ACE)

Drumroll, please!
Theatre, exclusive entertainment shows, speech and drama classes, talent development, events, celebrations, corporate grooming, philanthropy and more, ACE does it all. Founded by Raëll Padamsee over 30 years ago, ACE is the leading name in Indian showbiz.

Theatre and Shows
Perhaps best known for its theatre productions and exclusive shows, ACE has performed several internationally acclaimed plays for Indian audiences, including Macbeth, The Sound of Music, Grease, My Fair Lady, Miss Julie, Godspell and the Pulitzer Prize-winning Death of a Salesman. We perform our plays globally. Over the last 30 years, ACE has also produced over 100 original and adapted theatrical shows, including Padma Bhushan Girish Karnad’s Broken Images starring Padma Bhushan Shabana Azmi, directed by Padmashri Alyque Padamsee and Anything But Love, starring Mandira Bedi and Samir Soni, Unfaithfully Yours, starring Mona Singh and Rohit Roy, Anything But Love has been running for 13 years and has sold out over 350 shows, Broken Images has sold out over 125 shows across 11 years and Unfaithfully Yours has been performed over 100 times to housefull audiences over a span of 5 years. From musical theatre and stand-up comedy to classics and more serious themes, ACE has excelled in every genre, with countless prestigious awards under its belt. ACE has also been affiliated with the Lee Strasberg Film and Theatre Institute, New York.
ACE has in fact also presented Lior Suchard, the world’s greatest mentalist, who has wowed the likes of Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, Jack Ma and a host of other A-list celebrities, to stages across India. ACE even hosted the first ever global premiere of Lior’s show, Mind Games, virtually during the pandemic where fans around the world, including celebrities like Juhi Chawla, Sachin Tendulkar and Shabana Azmi, were treated to an evening of mentalism and mind reading in the comfort of their homes.

Children’s Acting and Speech and Drama Workshops
Taking their expertise in the theatre space a step further, ACE, in collaboration with theatre personalities Cyrus Broacha and Pearl Padamsee, started The Little Actors club in 1990, offering acting classes for young children. They soon expanded their classes to include the Young Actors Club for young adults, and Speech and Drama Workshops for children of all ages. ACE produces over 400 individual plays a year, with children from ages 4 to 14. Over 1 lakh children have participated in these classes that covered a wide variety of activities thoughtfully designed to unleash their creativity, boost their confidence and improve their English and public speaking abilities. The classes are intended for all children, not just those who are interested in acting, since they focus on holistic development. Apart from a ton of fun, better memory, concentration, attitude and personality are just some of the benefits of these classes, in addition to improved communication and interpersonal skills.
ACE has also taken these classes online during the coronavirus pandemic, to help ensure that children can continue to learn and grow while they’re at home. ACE has designed a brand-new, customised curriculum and executed over 1,500 hours of online Speech and Drama Workshops. Over 50 ACE instructors were trained for over 300 hours to prepare them to teach virtually and they have taught more than 3,000 children so far. They’ve seen incredible success with the virtual classes, with kids being just as engaged and enthusiastic as they are in offline classes. ACE has seen tremendous demand from all over India and all over the world, however, they are keeping the batch sizes small so that the instructors can give each child personal attention. ACE has also resumed teaching Speech and Drama classes online in several schools where it was part of the offline curriculum.

Talent Development
ACE has a talent division that identifies, nurtures and promotes new and emerging talent in the entertainment space, from the age of 3 onward. The aim is to help gifted individuals realise their dreams, by giving them the opportunity to perform in ACE productions and helping them get the break they deserve. Aladdin, Oliver!, Mahatma: Come Find the Gandhi in You, Alibaba & Bablu the Bear, The Magic of Christmas, It’s Showtime Folks, Rediscover the Epic and Hungama Bollywood Ishtyle are some ACE productions that have featured a cast of hundreds of talented children. In fact, Tanay Chedda, the actor who won an Oscar for his performance in the internationally acclaimed film Slumdog Millionaire started out as an ACE star at the tender age of 3.

Events and Celebrations
ACE also has a full-service event planning division that conceptualises, designs and executes exclusive events and celebrations. Destination weddings, landmark birthdays, anniversaries, supper theatres, company off-sites, corporate annual days and team bonding activities are among the different types of events that ACE has hosted on behalf of several high-profile clients and corporates, with a panache and attention to detail that has resulted in a 100% success rate.

Corporate Courses
ACE’s Edge Academy for Corporate Grooming offers customised corporate courses that help management and employees of all levels sharpen their corporate image and improve their communication and interpersonal skills, priming them for success. Sabira Merchant and Raell Padamsee are among the prestigious faculty, and the courses guarantee a transformed, more professional workforce. Several Indian and international firms, including HSBC, HDFC, Citibank, American Express, Bank of Baroda, Bank of India, State Bank of India, Aditya Birla Group, McKinsey & Company, Larsen & Toubro, LIC, Reliance Capital, Heinz India Pvt. Ltd. and Pfizer are just a few of the companies that have benefitted from these courses.

Raëll Padamsee, MD and CEO of ACE
The daughter of advertising legend Alyque Padamsee and theatre and film veteran Pearl Padamsee, Raëll Padamsee has showbiz running in her blood. She started acting at 15, directed her first play at 16, featured in a professional play - Woody Allen’s Don’t Drink the Water - at the age of 17, founded a personal grooming academy at 18 and produced a play for Ronnie Screwvala’s Laezer Productions at 19. By the age of 22, she had started her own production company. Today, with over 30 years of experience in the theatre and entertainment space and over 100 productions to her credit, she juggles all these different hats with ease - artist, director, producer, educator, philanthropist and entrepreneur. An absolute powerhouse, she brings her effortless style, larger-than-life personality, visionary mindset and generosity of spirit to everything she does.
Raëll Padamsee has several prestigious awards to her credit:

• Zee Asthitva Award
• Timeout India Award - Cultural Evangelist of Mumbai
• Rotary International Award - Make Dreams Real
• World HRD Congress - The World’s Best Storytelling Award
• H.R College of Commerce & Economics - Golden Alumnus Award
• Live Quotient Awards - Best Theatre Group (Raell Padamsee’s ACE Productions)
• Lions Club International - Woman of Wonder, WoW Theatre Personality
• Laadli Media Award - Gender Sensitivity
• Rotary Club of Bombay Central - Vocational Excellence Award for Art & Theatre
• Rotary Club of Mumbai Downtown - Vocational Excellence Award for English Theatre
• Young Environment Programme Trust - Women’s Achievers Award
• Harmony Group of Rotary Clubs - Vocational Excellence Award

CREATE Charitable Trust
Founded in the loving memory of Pearl and Alyque Padamsee, CREATE aims to revolutionize education and society through the lens of the creative arts. CREATE works with several NGOs to give mentally and physically disabled children the opportunity to feature in ACE’s productions. Grease, The Sound of Music, Mahatma, Freedom and Rediscover the Epic are a few of the productions where these children have been integrated along with children from mainstream schools, for the first time in India, on some of the biggest professional stages, like the Jamshed Bhabha Theatre and many more Every year, CREATE awards the best performing pupils with the CREATE Trophy for Artistic Excellence and the Pearl Padamsee Trophy for Excellence in Speech and Drama. CREATE has the support of several corporates, including TATA Sons, HDFC, the Bajaj Group and CIPLA, among many others.