Is there money in Theatre?
Introduction: The recently staged 'Sleuth' was one of the most expensively produced plays in recent years. The play director, Pawan Kumar, discusses theatre economics with Puja Goyal.
(Source: Vijay Times, LIFE: Centre stage)
Copyright © 2005 Puja Goyal
Noted theatre personality, Ratan Thakore Grant was quoted as saying, "There is no money in theatre, it is expensive and has absolutely no repeat audience". Arundhati Raja, a popular name in Bangalore theatre, is appalled at "the most disturbing trend of a minimalist approach, which inculcates bad theatre: acting, setting, lighting, and presentation."
Is producing a play such a task? Most theatre houses, have been talking about the production aspect of theatre and what it takes for a play to be staged. Production is the very framework of any theatre group, without which a performance will fall apart like a deck of cards.
Pawan Kumar (ACTor) has recently staged Sleuth at RangaShankara. The set for Sleuth has cost him 6,00,000/-, one of the costliest in recent years. Pawan discusses what it takes to produce a play and attempts to scrutinize the myths surrounding it.
'Most theatre groups have their own practices in covering costs. But even today, almost all theatre groups want the support of a sponsor to do a play. A sponsor still remains the main costs covering entity. But it's not indispensable. Sadly, while working on a play budget, producers/directors even today ignore the cast and crew pay. They only plan to recover the money they have spent on the production. That’s when the final outcome doesn’t appear to be lucrative.'
'We design our plays in such a way that the outcome is lucrative. A production is not lucrative in the first run. Repeat shows is where the company starts making money. Recovering production cost is directly proportional to the number of shows of the production. For a play like The final Rehearsal, production cost is nil, so it's lucrative. Evam Indrajit is moderately expensive, but we had covered the production cost in the first run, so all repeats of it were lucrative. But when it comes to a play like SLEUTH, even 18 shows don't pay up the production cost, productions like this need sponsorships.
Most theatre houses are not experimenting with bigger sets, But this can be covered if we have an audience. Bangalore almost has no set designers for theatre. All the existing ones are sucked into movies and television. For Sleuth, we were very lucky to find one who was willing to work for our budget. Most of the theatre groups I guess don’t experiment bigger sets because of the quotations given by the set designers, which usually run into some astronomical figure.
A bigger set means lot of work. That means lot of shows in a run. But not many theatre groups in Bangalore are tuned to the concept of doing ‘REPEAT’ shows. Usually a production sees the lime light for two shows and then gets shelved. Sleuth was going to be repeated for 18 shows in the first run because of the same reason. We can’t build that set every other month.'
Set for Sleuth
On money in theater, Myth or Reality…
'There is money in Theatre. If work is done systematically like any other company, then theatre too can become an industry on it own. Like any other company, a theatre group should also have an accounts division; Management division, publicity division and art division.
My experience says that, the only way to get a sponsor is to know some decision maker personally. It is rarely that a company considers theatre as a lucrative advertising option. We have offered various packages to innumerable companies but none of them have worked. Even a project like Sleuth didn’t get any sponsors. But on the contrary we have seen a lot of non-deserving productions having lot of sponsors supporting them; the story behind these productions is that they have a contact.
One of the other ways a sponsor agrees to support is if the play has a star cast. Not much in Bangalore yet, but in Bombay it really does matter to have a star cast.
Though theatre does offer a lot of room for advertising, sponsoring companies are blind to the proposal.
I think English theatre soon is going to take over (if it already has not). English theatre is receiving good response. Frankly speaking, language has never been a barrier for the audience. Everything finally boils down to ‘Quality of work’. As long as good productions are staged, it will not become obsolete.'
(Source: Vijay Times, LIFE: Centre stage)
Copyright © 2005 Puja Goyal
Noted theatre personality, Ratan Thakore Grant was quoted as saying, "There is no money in theatre, it is expensive and has absolutely no repeat audience". Arundhati Raja, a popular name in Bangalore theatre, is appalled at "the most disturbing trend of a minimalist approach, which inculcates bad theatre: acting, setting, lighting, and presentation."
Is producing a play such a task? Most theatre houses, have been talking about the production aspect of theatre and what it takes for a play to be staged. Production is the very framework of any theatre group, without which a performance will fall apart like a deck of cards.
Pawan Kumar (ACTor) has recently staged Sleuth at RangaShankara. The set for Sleuth has cost him 6,00,000/-, one of the costliest in recent years. Pawan discusses what it takes to produce a play and attempts to scrutinize the myths surrounding it.
'Most theatre groups have their own practices in covering costs. But even today, almost all theatre groups want the support of a sponsor to do a play. A sponsor still remains the main costs covering entity. But it's not indispensable. Sadly, while working on a play budget, producers/directors even today ignore the cast and crew pay. They only plan to recover the money they have spent on the production. That’s when the final outcome doesn’t appear to be lucrative.'
'We design our plays in such a way that the outcome is lucrative. A production is not lucrative in the first run. Repeat shows is where the company starts making money. Recovering production cost is directly proportional to the number of shows of the production. For a play like The final Rehearsal, production cost is nil, so it's lucrative. Evam Indrajit is moderately expensive, but we had covered the production cost in the first run, so all repeats of it were lucrative. But when it comes to a play like SLEUTH, even 18 shows don't pay up the production cost, productions like this need sponsorships.
Most theatre houses are not experimenting with bigger sets, But this can be covered if we have an audience. Bangalore almost has no set designers for theatre. All the existing ones are sucked into movies and television. For Sleuth, we were very lucky to find one who was willing to work for our budget. Most of the theatre groups I guess don’t experiment bigger sets because of the quotations given by the set designers, which usually run into some astronomical figure.
A bigger set means lot of work. That means lot of shows in a run. But not many theatre groups in Bangalore are tuned to the concept of doing ‘REPEAT’ shows. Usually a production sees the lime light for two shows and then gets shelved. Sleuth was going to be repeated for 18 shows in the first run because of the same reason. We can’t build that set every other month.'
Set for Sleuth
On money in theater, Myth or Reality…
'There is money in Theatre. If work is done systematically like any other company, then theatre too can become an industry on it own. Like any other company, a theatre group should also have an accounts division; Management division, publicity division and art division.
My experience says that, the only way to get a sponsor is to know some decision maker personally. It is rarely that a company considers theatre as a lucrative advertising option. We have offered various packages to innumerable companies but none of them have worked. Even a project like Sleuth didn’t get any sponsors. But on the contrary we have seen a lot of non-deserving productions having lot of sponsors supporting them; the story behind these productions is that they have a contact.
One of the other ways a sponsor agrees to support is if the play has a star cast. Not much in Bangalore yet, but in Bombay it really does matter to have a star cast.
Though theatre does offer a lot of room for advertising, sponsoring companies are blind to the proposal.
I think English theatre soon is going to take over (if it already has not). English theatre is receiving good response. Frankly speaking, language has never been a barrier for the audience. Everything finally boils down to ‘Quality of work’. As long as good productions are staged, it will not become obsolete.'
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