‘Tough to make a living’
I’ve been doing theatre since 1989, when I was in standard 10. Back then, people who were really passionate would get together and do their bit in theatre and unless you belonged to an elite background, you had to struggle in theatre. We used to walk several kilometres to reach a point where we could meet and talk about theatre, that was a time when theatre wasn’t an easy option. It was very difficult to make a living out of theatre, today it is much easier. Pay was something we never thought about. We started Nishumbita Theatre group at a time when there wasn’t much focus on regional theatre and so that was a challenge in itself. But we did see a lot of people taking to it. In fact over the years the focus on regional theatre has become much better.
— Ram mohan Holagundi, founder of Nishumbita Ballet and Theatre
Ram mohan Holagundi, founder of Nishumbita Ballet and Theatre
Constantly evolving
Growth of theatre like that of society is an evolutionary process. It changes constantly. The quantity of theatre groups is one way of measuring growth but it has more to do with quality. Entertainment is one small aspect. The job of theatre is to accept and throw up challenges, inform, educate and experiment. In Hyderabad, today if you make people laugh, that’s theatre. Barring a couple of groups here, others don’t understand the essence of theatre. Hopefully they’ll learn. Today, we need at least a couple of dedicated 200-seater auditoriums and more multipurpose cultural spaces. The Phoenix arena, Lamakaan and our Sacred Space are in the right direction but that’s not enough.
— Vinay Varma, founder of Sutradhar
Theatre is no child’s play
I came back to Hyderabad in 1997 after I completed my studies. Back then, there were English, Marathi and Hindi theatre groups but the number of plays was less, say about two plays in a year. So I started writing plays. Between 1997 and 2000, I started taking up theatre workshops for kids to bring about a change in the future. Parents weren’t used to the idea of children taking up theatre workshops and so I would get asked what is it, why is it being done, how will it help them and more. I would sometimes spend an hour just convincing parents. Today, almost every school wants to hire a drama teacher to host theatre workshops. The change has been good.
— Vaishali Bisht, Co-founder of the annual Hyderabad Children’s Theatre Festival
Vaishali Bisht, Co-founder of the annual Hyderabad Children’s Theatre Festival
Rathna Shekar, founder of Samahaara Theatre Group
‘It was a scary time to do theatre’
I got into the theatre scene in Hyderabad in 2003. It was a scary time for taking up theatre as a career, simply because there were very few plays and the pay wasn’t great. Well, the latter hasn’t changed much even today. Sometimes, there would be just two plays a month and not everyone got to perform. However, things started to change when the IT industry developed and Facebook arrived. The IT crowd wanted to do something on weekends and ventured into theatre. With Facebook, the word spread fast. In early 2000s, starting a group was a task because unless you were established, no one would watch your show.
— Rathna Shekar, founder of Samahaara Theatre Group
