Theater and television After his graduation from NSD in 1990, Piyush Mishra started his career as a theatre actor in Delhi, and in 1990, helped start the theatre group Act One, with founder-director
N. K. Sharma and stage actors like
Manoj Bajpai,
Gajraj Rao and
Ashish Vidyarthi. In the following years he wrote and directed several plays as a part of Act One Theatre Group, including the acclaimed play,
Gagan Damama Bajiyo (The Sky Resounds with the Call to Arms), based on revolutionary
Bhagat Singh, which was first performed in 1994, and upon publishing, sold its first edition in just seven days. In 1996 he joined Asmita Theatre Group, and performed his popular one-man show
An Evening with Piyush Mishra. He wrote the lyrics for Asmita's popular plays. Piyush acted as
Maniac in Operation Three Star (an adaptation of Dario Fo's play
Accidental Death of an Anarchist). Piyush is also known for his performance in
Swadesh Deepak's
Court Martial as Suraj Singh, first with Ranjeet Kapoor (1991) and later under the direction of
Arvind Gaur (1996). By then, he had established himself as a theatre director and directed
Comedy of Terror play for Shriram Centre Repertory Company, and also presented his
solo act play at the
National School of Drama's Annual Theatre Festival,
Bharat Rang Mahotsav in 1999. Mishra briefly moved to Mumbai, as he acted in a television series,
Rajdhani (1989), directed by
Tigmanshu Dhulia for
Star TV, and
Shyam Benegal's
Bharat Ek Khoj (1988) and horror TV serial
Kile ka Rahasya (1989), though he returned to Delhi thereafter. It won him the
Zee Cine Award for Best Dialogue (2003). Meanwhile, he moved to
Mumbai in November 2002, He wrote his own dialogues for his performance as Hafeez (Huffy) Bhai in
Jhoom Barabar Jhoom (2007), and delivered them in poetry style. Mishra again appeared in
Anurag Kashyap's 2009 movie
Gulaal, a movie based on Indian youth, politics, caste-prejudice, and other such social topics. He played Prithvi, the poet brother of Dukey Bana (played by
Kay Kay Menon), in the movie. This was a role he executed with aplomb. He also wrote the lyrics for the songs in the movie, and sang a few of them as well and was also the music director of the film. He has acted in Rockstar alongside Ranbir Kapoor and was known as the 'Image is everything...everything is Image' guy. He acted and wrote lyrics of some songs for the movie
Gangs of Wasseypur. His songs are very high on poetic content and have received critical appreciation from all sections of audiences and critics. In 2014, he acted in the film
The Shaukeens, along with
Anupam Kher,
Annu Kapoor,
Lisa Haydon in the lead role, which had
Akshay Kumar in an extended
cameo. Piyush also appeared in
The Kapil Sharma Show to promote the film with Anupam Kher and Annu Kapoor. Although the film was a remake of the 1982 film
Shaukeen directed by
Basu Chatterjee, it was well appreciated by the audience and was voted the best comedy film of 2014. == Personal life ==