Opinion National Interest PoV 50-Word Edit

ThePrint On Camera Videos In Pictures

Society & Culture Around Town Book Excerpts Vigyapanti The Dating Story

More Judiciary Education YourTurn Work With Us Campus Voice

Opinion National Interest PoV 50-Word Edit

ThePrint On Camera Videos In Pictures

Society & Culture Around Town Book Excerpts Vigyapanti The Dating Story

More Judiciary Education YourTurn Work With Us Campus Voice

Theatre is dying in India. We need our own Broadway

America's Broadway works because of infrastructure, not just talent. India has never offered that.

As a former theatre kid, I’ve watched the live stage hollow out in slow motion. Auditoriums are emptier, runs are shorter, and there’s a nagging sense that ambition no longer lives in theatre. The talent hasn’t disappeared, but everything around it is eroding

Delhi should have been the undisputed theatre capital. It has a long and proud legacy, including institutions such as the National School of Drama that produced generations of formidable actors and directors— from Naseeruddin Shah, Pankaj Tripathi, Ratna Pathak Shah, and Neena Gupta to MK Raina, Satish Kaushik, and Santanu Bose. And yet, somewhere along the way, the pipeline broke.

The city has the bones of a theatre culture, but not the system to sustain it.

Ironically, Mumbai, the city of cinema, arguably does theatre better than Delhi. Aspiring actors who don’t break into Bollywood often turn to theatre, keeping the scene alive through sheer persistence and as a fallback. But here too, there’s........

© ThePrint