IF theatre is to thrive and play an active role in the social life of India, we need to explore ways and means, innovative policies, to sustain theatre practice in its various avatars. We need to look at, among other things, how to facilitate the process of connecting performances to audiences without which theatre cannot thrive. Therefore, venues where theatre is performed, where large audiences throng in numbers, become an important aspect of nurturing theatre.

This facet of the survival of theatre is seldom given its due, and so I wish to focus on the theatre auditorium, the venue and the home as being the catalyst for theatre. Prithvi Theatre, with its 30 years of experience has been at the forefront to create just such a ‘home’ for professional theatre groups from across India. This forms the background for my personal thoughts, and my focus of discussion will be the city of Mumbai where I grew up.

In the past 30 years Prithvi Theatre has, despite myriad efforts, failed to establish a regular practice of professional theatre. It can boast of over 400 shows a year, of variable quality, and a slowly growing audience at its intimate 200-seat auditorium. Shows are programmed with an intent to promote quality and inculcate a serious approach to theatre, not the least by focusing on setting a comfortable ambience for an arts adda. Prithvi Theatre programmes its own exciting annual events and festivals. However, since no other venue in the city shares this vision, hence ‘professional’ is a tricky word to use. If it is to mean that theatre people can live off the earnings of their work in theatre, then clearly Prithvi has failed.

As for the quality of theatre in Mumbai, clearly quantity surmounts quality, and a great amount of work needs to be done to enhance and demand a certain level of quality. However that is not the focus of this paper. We need to proceed with the understanding that quality of ‘good’ theatre, and all that it encompasses, needs looking into. For theatre to evolve and reach a level of excellence, the sheer practice of it is essential. Hence, performance spaces are as central to theatre’s development as catalysts of quality, be it training, content development, exposure or inculcating rigour.

When I recently surfed through the web and read high powered vision statements about the future of Mumbai in 2012-2013 that envisioned it as a ‘world class’ city, it was shocking that no thought had been given to creating spaces for cultural engagement. In India, we in theatre joke about the fact that creative pursuits have all survived in spite of and despite our cultural policy – perhaps because there is no clear cultural policy at all.

But do we seriously believe that Mumbai will survive? With over 15 million inhabitants, a number growing daily, and where the gap between the haves and the have-nots hits you in the face, can we afford to gloss over the huge impact such disparity will have sooner than later? Theatre and the arts could engage in bridging the isolation of groups and communities, even help them come closer to each other. It is imperative that we take serious note of the role of the arts in a growing megapolis which claims to be cosmopolitan in spirit, but where violence is growing by the day. This brings me to look at how and why I believe theatre needs to exist in this ‘world class’ city in the coming decade.

 

The idea quite simply is to breathe life into at least 22 ‘new’ performance spaces that differ in size and scope, spread across the city of Mumbai, reaching out to a wide range of audiences. This entire plan has evolved over months of research and practical, logistical and economic contemplation – it is very ‘doable’ as long as there is a will to do! Already existing spaces could be made available to fulfil this plan which would considerably reduce building costs. However, I say ‘new’ spaces since the entire management and vision of the spaces need a complete overhaul. This could incorporate Prithvi Theatre’s way of functioning which has always been two-pronged – giving performing groups the very best professional infrastructure and playing the role of a catalyst to professionalize the groups, thereby developing quality theatre and cultivating audiences. Prithvi is actively involved in both these areas, distinguishing us from other theatre venues across town. We subsidize the theatre rent that groups pay to enable them greater financial stability and we control ticket rates to enable the development of new audiences. We also selectively programme our schedule and explore ways of outreach.

 

These ‘new’ spaces would need to have income generating schemes as well as sponsor support systems, similar to Prithvi Theatre’s small management team, thus keeping infrastructure costs to the barest minimum. These costs will gradually rise as the venue develops into a successful and important cultural hub. Another aspect intrinsic to the Prithvi way of working is the creation of spaces that are welcoming and do not dwarf and belittle but instead, involve you. Imposing and grandiose cultural centres have been built across the world, especially in recent times. Such spaces, however, remain impersonal, separating the audience from the performers and the management. This is contra to what we aspire to create.

It is an essential part of our philosophy that one enters a theatre feeling a relevant part of the whole experience and not a small insignificant voyeur. It is important to underscore that a paying audience is critical to the development of urban theatre and only some open-air venues, for instance, should have free entry.

 

To enumerate what these spaces could be – Ten Prithvi-like venues that are spread across the city, consciously reaching out to the immediate neighbourhood to generate a discerning theatre audience and find dynamic ways to demand quality work from theatre groups. Each of these theatre should have their own distinctive character but their basic aim should bear synchronicity with each other.

Children’s theatre is forever given step-motherly treatment, not only in India but internationally too. The benefits of this form of theatre are undoubtedly enormous – and varied – pedagogically, socially, artistically and economically. The city of Mumbai is in a position to take a lead in this field by generating a sustainable about of work through setting up four children’s theatre centres that would host quality performances as well as workshops for children.

Public performances are a historical part of ‘world class’ cities that we wish to emulate – performances in parks in New York and London are a part of these cities greatest attractions. We have the weather and the spaces to programme dynamic performances in open air spaces – these could include puppetry, music, poetry, dance and theatre – and could become an enormous tourist attraction and should be a ‘must see’ for any visitor to Mumbai. These spaces may need a greater government input as a major part of their programming could be free of ticket charges.

Taking inspiration from Brazil’s model organization that runs comprehensive cultural and arts facilities, SESC (Social Service of Commerce) which is an institution to help carry out social welfare programmes aimed at raising the level of cultural activities to benefit the Brazilian people. We should target setting up two community arts centres in Mumbai. SESC is a social institution with strong presence in the areas of culture, sports, health and education. music, drama, dance, courses for the elderly and sport activities for adults and children are offered to the public, as well as programmes for environmental awareness and social inclusion.

SESC’s regional director says ‘SESC is not only a cultural or sports institution. It is a social welfare institution, which uses every possible strategy to promote the people’s development and quality of life. The very base of welfare projects has to do with giving value to the human being, who deserves respect within a standard of absolute equality. This is not a matter of religion or politics. It is about culture. From a cultural point of view, we are all fundamentally equal.’

 

Imagine two such centres in Mumbai – multilingual and keeping diversity and plurality as their mandate in programming year round activities of the very finest quality.

So what we would have by 2013 in the city of Mumbai would be 10 Prithvi-like theatres, 4 children’s theatre spaces, 6 open air spaces for theatre and 2 community arts centres. These would generate over 6500 additional shows annually to an audience capacity of over 20 lakh people. Regular work and performance opportunities for about 200 groups would be created. Apart from setting up building and infrastructural costs, which would vary from site to site, the running costs that each of these venues would need, over and above income generated (per annum) by their own activities would roughly be as follows: 10 Prithvi Theatre-like theatres (Rs 50 lakh each), Rs 5 crore for 10 venues; 4 children’s theatre centres (Rs 60 lakh each), Rs 2.4 crore for 4 venues; 6 open air spaces for performance (Rs 25 lakh each), Rs 1.5 crore for 6 venues; 2 community arts centres (Rs 1.5 crore each), Rs 3 crore for 2 venues.

 

The money required to manage these 22 new cultural spaces in Mumbai would be Rs 12 to 15 crore annually, over and above the income each space generates. In Brazil, SESC, the multi-cultural centres, run on a cess that business houses are compelled to pay directly towards funding these spaces. In Singapore, the authorities reportedly put in colossal amounts of money to create various state-of-the art performance spaces, only to find that they had to ‘import’ performances from across the world at even more exorbitant costs to programme shows in these auditoria. They did not have enough local theatre! The irony is that Mumbai and neighbouring cities have enough performing groups to programme a really dynamic and exciting annual schedule across all these venues.

And, it is only through multiple performance opportunities like these that we will be able to push for quality and content to make theatre truly professional in the best sense of the word. Of course this alone cannot be the magic formula to create excellent theatre but it is by far going to play the role of a major catalyst.

 

Does Mumbai care? Vision Mumbai 2013 talks about transport, water, education, power, urban planning, security – all essential for a world class city. But can we not raise Rs 12-15 crore a year to create a world-class cultural hub? What are these ‘world class’ cities that we aspire to? We want Mumbai to join the super-club of London, New York, Singapore, Hong Kong, Sao Paolo, Sydney, Shanghai, Bangkok, Rio de Janeiro and Toronto. If you take away theatre or the arts from New York, London or Toronto, for example, would that matter or would these cities turn into ghosts of themselves? Do we pause to see what these cities have done in the field of cultural policy? A quick glance at the web shows one the cultural policies that each of these cities has persued – whereas Mumbai throws up a blank. Personally I feel the greatest burden we carry is our 5000 year old culture. Today we believe that since it has survived so long with no policy, it can continue to survive without any in the future.

But what I fear most is the insular life of the new citizen of India that we are creating – an anonymous person in a town or city that is not his or her own, uprooted and made to feel small and obscure but given the false satisfaction of wealth and all the goodies that come with it. Through the arts, and I include all the arts not only theatre, having significant space in our city, a revival of the only language that can cross the barriers of caste, creed, economic differences and the spoken word, we can bring cohesion into a fast fragmenting society.

 

So how can we breathe new life into the city of Mumbai? First, we need political will to create sustainable public-private partnerships to set up these projects. Urban planning schemes need to incorporate the philosophy of this proposal with autonomous and truly independent bodies to run these spaces. The revenue departments and finance ministry (both state and central) need to work out incentives for large corporates and builders to support these ventures. Our tourism ministry needs to dovetail activities and programmes with such entities. The Indian Council for Cultural Relations needs to engage with international programming facilities, and our local governing bodies need to put in place one-window and affordable local licensing systems.

Corporate will is essential where corporate houses are invited to adopt venues, help create financial plans for each venue, sustain them over a ten year period and become true patrons of the arts, taking a cue from other nations. The theatre community needs to see the benefits of this scheme and existing performing spaces need to be located and earmarked for this purpose. A professional management team needs to be put in place to manage and share skills and programmes.

If all these were to come together, we would be able to work towards actually becoming a ‘world class’ city. Inshallah! Sometimes wishes are horses.