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World Theatre Day: The Young and the artful

With youngsters from different parts of the country eager to formalise their love for theatre, the stage appears to be an exciting space this World Theatre Day

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Members of Kolkata-based theatre group Mad About Drama (MAD)
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In the age of capitalist holidays, how much is a World Theatre Day (Monday, 27 March) worth? A whole lot, if you ask the young urban bunch who have, over a little more than the last half decade, been trying to reinvent the stage as an art space. 

But this organised attempt to pull an easily distracted movie-going crowd into the intimate experience of theatre started even earlier, when some millenials decided to form active groups — taking part in college fests, street shows and  youth festivals before claiming their place under the strobe lights of an Akshara or a Prithvi Theatre. Some went a step further and started annual theatre festivals to rope in future talent. Here’s looking at a journey inspiring and underway—the raring tomorrows and the brilliant yesterdays of young-Indian theatre.

Setting stage for tomorrow
Soumya Mukherjee,  co-founder of Kolkata-based group Mad About Drama (MAD) might have discovered his love for theatre during after-school rehearsals under the guidance of an English teacher, but the 24-year-old refuses to dub his art as ‘youth theatre’. “Youth theatre propagates the notion of flirting with the art form, a sentiment common amongst some college groups. For those who wish to carry out our theatrical aspirations beyond the age of 25, the trivialisation of purpose takes away a significant  audience,” he reasons. 

True enough, Mukherjee’s troupe, formed in 2011, is in that awkward but audacious age where it has moved from winning college competitions to basking in the joy of standing ovations at auditoriums like Gyan Manch (Kolkata) and even Prithvi Theatre (Mumbai). But these achievements are not without their share of challenges. While it only took  Mukherjee a brief brush with journalism, post college, to realise theatre had claimed his heart for good, it was a whole other battle to establish a reputation where funding was substantial and consistent. 

Even after  MAD’s performances at the iconic Thespo festival and a passionate response for their  productions A Good Play, With Love, Calcutta and Code Name SRK, the battle is on. “Hasn’t that always been the case with independent art?” reflects Mukherjee, before adding "theatre is the only thing that we know how to do well".  So, what does it take for a thespian to do well? “Good content, strong will and a lot of perseverance,” reveals the boy who does not believe in the linguistic labels of "English or Hindi theatre". What Mukherjee, like many young artists of his ilk, believes in, is the “incomparable thrill of telling a good story.”



Youngsters gearing up for the annual Thespo festival (Facebook)

From a past, future-perfect

Allowing young story-tellers a space of their own was one of the driving inspirations behind Thespo, the youth theatre movement launched with a One Act Play festival in 1999. 

“We were a group of friends whose glory days of ideating around Ithaka, St Xavier’s college’s English literature and performance arts fest, had come to an end with graduation,” recalls theatre artiste Toral Shah, who along with Quasar Thakore Padamsee, Arghya Lahiri, Chris Samuel and Nadir Khan, decided it was time to set a different kind of stage. “We looked at our fellow theatre-wallahs, stuck with these talented productions and no place to go — and said chalo, kuch karte hain.” Back then, Shah points out, there was no formal degree in Mumbai, even the National School of Drama (Delhi) had only higher level courses on Acting and Direction. 

Thus began a “small-scale but ambitious” One Act Play festival at the Sophia Bhabha Auditorium, which snowballed into the annual Thespo festival that exercises its dramatic grip on youngsters (upto the age of 25) every December. Over the years, Thespo grew to reach out to different parts of the country—the metro cities, the small towns and even beyond the borders. Registrations have been known to pour in from theatre enthusiasts in Karachi and Srilanka.  “Our forte used to be theatre in English language. But now Thespo has evolved into this eclectic space where intelligent story-telling is the only language,” Shah shares, taking pride in the wonderful implosion of Hindi, English, Marathi, Gujarati or Sanskrit that colours Thespo's experiences with productions. Ask Shah what's special about young people on stage and her voice gains a happy lilt. "These are the people who are never afraid to take creative risks!" she quips, talking about amateur productions that have blown her mind with the use of live feed, projections, great contemporary renditions of classics and even opera singers  

“In theatre, writing a good play isn’t enough. You haven’t succeeded till you’ve convinced your audience,” Shah cautions. And for the current pool of talent, no audience appears too hard to convince.  

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