A group of theatre personalities has come up with India’s very first management programme for theatre. Called Strategic Management in the Art of Theatre, or SMART, the course hopes to equip members of theatre groups and organisations to deal with the challenge of creating a commercially sustainable model for theatre. In an email interview, Sanjna Kapoor, director of theatre support organisation Junoon and former director of Prithvi Theatre who has launched the project with India Theatre Forum, gives Veenu Sandhu the details. Edited excerpts:
What made you decide on a management programme for theatre?
Learning on the job was difficulty, and with absolutely no training opportunities in India, I constantly had to invent ways of working. Now, after 25 years as an administrator in the field of theatre, I know that my output and impact could have been much bigger if I and my colleagues had got some training. Good fortune helped in the form of a wonderful bunch of theatrewallahs around me who believed in the need for such training too.
It hasn't been easy though. We knew many theatrewallahs would have reservations when accosted by corporate sounding terminology and concepts. One of the greatest challenges was to develop an indigenous training programme that addresses today's needs within our framework and yet does not reinvent the wheel. We are very fortunate to have a superb faculty/facilitators of theatre and arts management practitioners who are dedicated to developing this programme under the mentorship of Milena Dragiæeviæ Šešiæ, who is the UNESCO chair in cultural policy and management and professor at the University of the Arts, Belgrade, Serbia.
Theatre artists usually seek artistic satisfaction. Managing finances and generating resources is another issue. How will the programme deal with this contradiction?
Funds have always been an issue for most theatre practitioners, but that has never stopped the creation of theatre. However, it has been and continues to be a struggle. What we believe is that through getting to understand different ways of working, one can shift gear from simply surviving to thriving in theatre. This is what we wish to achieve. Whether it is getting the know-how for practical things like the magic of Excel or fund raising, the first step is to articulate dreams and create the roadmaps for realising them.
Theatre groups across India have varied formats and styles. How will SMART apply to all of them?
SMART is aimed at urban and semi-urban theatre practitioners. Many of our traditional forms of theatre like Jatra, Tamasha, Assamese Mobile Theatre and Therakuttu have age-old practices of functioning and in many ways are more sophisticated in their management than urban theatre. We would not exclude anyone from applying but our programme is not designed to address their challenges and needs as we would not be equipped to understand them.
Some details of the curriculum.
SMART's aim is for each participating theatre group or organisation to develop its own unique strategic plan. Two decision-makers from each group will attend a 10-day residential learning process in which we will work on various aspects that will lead to the development of the first draft of their strategic plan: how to build a group, develop audiences, modes of communicating, financial management, fund raising and administration. Once participants return to their groups, they will be mentored over the next six months.
How have theatre practices, particularly management and marketing, changed from the time of your grandfather's Prithvi Theatres?
Both my grandparents, Prithviraj Kapoor and Geoffrey Kendal, were actor-managers of their respective theatre companies, 'Prithvi Theatres' and 'Shakespeareana'. They both toured India in the 1940s, '50s and '60s. Life was simpler and the bombardment of choices was not so enormous for their audiences. So, advertising comprised the simple tactics of handing out fliers outside cinema houses or announcing shows through a bhonpu from a rickshaw. Word of mouth too must have played an enormous role. And I believe even today word of mouth is the most powerful tool of advertising for theatre.
Running a professional theatre company was a simpler job then. You earned from your ticket income; so all you had to ensure was the securing of shows and the inflow of an audience. Today, ticket income offsets only a miniscule part of the expenses of a show - if you were to charge the actual costs, then you would cater only to the super elite and would have very few shows. There are very few theatre groups now with all their members on a full-time salary, unlike in my grandparents' time. Today, this takes place only in commercial theatre and in traditional theatre. But there is one thing that remains the same: that by choosing a life in theatre in India, you are consciously opting to live a frugal life. But it will be a life filled with adventure, wonder and magic.
