The desi audience has seen the epic love story of Prince Salim and Anarkali on the stage as well as the big screen in the form of "Mughal-e-Azam". On World Theatre Day on March 27, actors like Richa Chadha, Gulshan Devaiah and Joy Sengupta share which Bollywood film they would want to see as a play.

Richa picked the 1986 Bollywood comedy film "Chameli Ki Shaadi". "It was adorable," Richa told IANS.

Her second choice is "Aandhi", starring Sanjeev Kumar and Suchitra Sen. "It is political and is easily doable," she said about the 1975 film.

Gulshan also went a few decades back to choose a film perfect for the stage.

"Sholay! It's gonna be a huge challenge to do something so iconic on stage. I think it's possible to retain the soul of the film but completely reinterpret the staging of it," the "Mard Ko Dard Nahi Hota" actor said about the Amitabh Bachchan and Dharmendra-starrer that is still in people's hearts for setting major friendship goals.

Actor Anshuman Jha said if he had to pick a film now, it would probably be "'Bheja Fry' for a good comedy play or 'A Death In The Gunj' for a good thriller".

Joy Sengupta would love to see legendary filmmaker Bimal Roy's films being turned into plays.

"They had essential conflicts, magnificent aesthetics and a certain lyricism, which would translate into great theatre," said the actor, who chose Roy's "Do Bigha Zamin" for movie to play adaptation.

"It is about agrarian conflict and story of epic struggle of survival," he explained.

Actress Bhavna Pani thinks Guru Dutt's films on stage would be an interesting watch.

"'Pyaasa' and 'Kaagaz Ke Phool' particularly. And a close second would be my desire to see Hrishikesh Mukherjee's films turned into musicals," she said.

Going little contemporary, actress Smita Jaykar, who has acted in "Devdas" film and "Devdas - the musical", a play by Ashvin Gidwani's AGP World, would like to see "Bajirao Mastani" on stage.

"Bhavesh Joshi Superhero" actor Priyanshu Painyuli would like to see "Dil Se" by filmmaker Mani Ratnam turned into a play. "It's one of my favourite films and I think because it has strong emotional characters who are very persistent, their beautifully woven love story with the backdrop of terrorism, can be a great drama to watch on stage," he said about the film that starred Shah Rukh Khan and Manisha Koirala.

(Natalia Ningthoujam can be contacted at natalia.n@ians.in)