25 min read

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Aug 3, 2025

Step into a typical theatre group meeting in Kolkata, and you’ll likely encounter a familiar scene. Seasoned directors sit in circles, sipping tea, reminiscing about the golden days — those packed auditoriums of the ’60s through the ’90s. The conversation often takes a melancholic turn: “Where did the audience go?” “Why doesn’t theatre matter the way it once did?”

And inevitably, the blame falls on the youth. “They don’t care about real art anymore.” “All they want is viral fame.”

But let’s pause for a moment.

This isn’t just a generational gripe. It’s a misdiagnosis of a deeper issue. The truth is not that today’s young people are disinterested in theatre — it’s that theatre, in many ways, has failed to remain relevant to them.

The disconnect is real, but it’s far more structural, cultural, and ideological than we often care to admit. Instead of writing off an entire generation as shallow or distracted, maybe it’s time we ask harder questions:

· How has theatre evolved (or not) alongside society?

· Are we still telling stories that resonate with today’s realities?

· Do young people see themselves on our stages?

This blog isn’t about pointing fingers. It’s about shifting the lens. If we truly believe in the transformative power of theatre, we must stop blaming the next generation for walking away. Instead, we must start reimagining the stage we’re inviting them to step onto.

Let’s explore how.

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There is a fundamental problem with how the so-called “youth crisis” in theatre is framed. When senior theatre practitioners lament, “Young people don’t come to theatre anymore,” the question is rarely asked with sincerity. It is not a curiosity — it is a condemnation. It is not an invitation — it is a dismissal.

This attitude reveals a deeper malaise: the tendency to see generational shifts as moral decline rather than as a call for reflection and change. This is intellectually lazy, historically inaccurate, and culturally damaging. Worse, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. When you presume disengagement, you design no engagement. When you anticipate indifference, you offer nothing worth investing in.

What the older generation often reads as “apathy” is, in truth, a rational response to a system that offers little cultural relevance, artistic autonomy, or financial dignity. Young people aren’t walking away from theatre because they don’t care. They’re walking away because the theatre refuses to make room.

Let’s call things by their name. What repels young, passionate minds isn’t a lack of interest in performance, it’s:

· A stagnant repertoire of plays that regurgitate the same canonical texts, stripped of urgency or reinterpretation.

· Rigid hierarchical structures where seniority overrides innovation, and newcomers are reduced to errand-runners or token dancers.

· The absence of basic compensation makes long-term involvement economically unsustainable for anyone not born into privilege.

· An unwillingness to engage with contemporary media and narrative forms, from digital storytelling to hybrid performance.

And yet, when these issues are raised, they’re often dismissed as “impatience” or “lack of commitment.” But how committed is a system that offers no growth, no security, no respect?

This generational blame game is obvious in Kolkata, where many theatre groups proudly claim to include “young people” but treat them as props, not collaborators. Yes, their social media is filled with behind-the-scenes photos of smiling newcomers. Yes, these groups talk about “youth energy” in interviews. But who’s writing the plays? Who gets to direct? Who decides what is worth staging?

In truth, the so-called “young members” often fall into two categories:

1. Aspirants of the screen industry — those who see theatre as a temporary stepping stone to TV serials, reality shows, or OTT work. Their presence is functional, not ideological.

2. Idealistic young artists — those who want to write, experiment, and question. But these are often ignored, patronized, or quietly pushed out.

Rather than seeing this as a crisis of youth disengagement, we should recognize it as a crisis of institutional stagnation and intellectual dishonesty. Senior members must ask themselves: Do we want disciples, or do we want co-creators? Do we want to be remembered as the generation that upheld theatre — or the one that held it hostage?

Token inclusion does not equate to transformation. A true youth revival in theatre cannot happen as long as power is hoarded, critique is silenced, and innovation is feared.

The problem is not that young people won’t come. The problem is: when they do come, the theatre often has nothing meaningful to offer — except nostalgia, exploitation, and the instruction to “know your place.”

Until this misdiagnosis is corrected, no amount of youth outreach campaigns, “internship” programs, or selfie-filled workshops will fix the rot. Because theatre doesn’t need young faces. It needs a young vision.

Today’s youth are not merely growing up with digital media — they are being shaped by it. They are what sociologists call digital natives, fluent in hypermedia languages that transcend conventional formats. Their attention isn’t fragmented — it’s distributed. Their storytelling isn’t passive — it’s interactive. They don’t just watch stories — they remix, meme, satire, annotate, and subvert them. YouTube Shorts and Instagram Reels trends evolve into dance theatre. Fan edits on Instagram explore aesthetics with a postmodern sharpness. YouTube essays dissect character arcs with literary depth. Even AI tools are now being used by teenagers to simulate scripts, generate set designs, or test alternate endings.

This is not a generation allergic to complexity. Far from it. Gen Z and younger millennials are arguably the most narratively saturated generation in human history. They’re watching 6-season-long K-dramas, reading fan fiction spun off niche anime, debating the political allegories in Attack on Titan, and bingeing multi-hour video essays about media theory or critiques of cinema — all in their spare time. This is a generation of meta-storytellers, hungry not just for narrative but for the layers beneath it.

So the question becomes urgent: Why isn’t theatre speaking their language?

Traditional theatre — especially in cities like Kolkata — is still largely stuck in an analog rhythm. Performances are treated as sacred, immutable texts. The “stage” is fixed. Audience interaction is minimal. The fourth wall is rarely broken. The conventions are tight. The actors are told not to breathe outside the directorial blueprint. Most plays are written with a linear structure, archaic diction, and a glacial pace that doesn’t respect the young mind’s agility.

And when young people reject this, they are mocked for having short attention spans or being “addicted to screens.” But the truth is, it’s not speed they seek, but stimulation — depth, honesty, aesthetic freshness, and intellectual engagement. Something theatre once promised.

Here’s what traditional theatre often fails to realize: digital storytelling isn’t superficial — it’s expansive. A 15-second reel can deliver a strong message. A meme can trigger a cultural critique. A Discord server can host a collective writing experiment that spans months. Virtual spaces are where theatre used to be — in the hands of the people, experimental, disruptive.

· Why can’t we stage short digital-first performances meant to be watched vertically on a phone?

· Why aren’t we creating “live stories” that unfold episodically over Instagram or Telegram groups?

· Why not release the behind-the-scenes rehearsal as a docu-series to involve the audience in the process?

· Why can’t digital tools — like AI, AR filters, motion tracking, voice synthesis — become the very language of performance?

Instead of running away from technology, theatre needs to reclaim it. Because it was theatre — not cinema — that was originally about immersion, collective presence, shared imagination, and surprise. That same spirit still lives in the comment section of a viral reel, in a meme war, in an open-source creative challenge. Theatre can be reborn — not by copying the digital — but by collaborating with it.

But doing this demands humility. It requires senior artists to learn from those younger than them. It requires rehearsal rooms to integrate sound artists, motion designers, coders, and meme-makers as equal collaborators. It requires us to rethink what a “performance” even is.

Digital doesn’t mean shallow. Analog doesn’t mean deep. The real divide is between authenticity and performance-for-performance s-sake.

And young people? They can smell inauthenticity a mile away.

They are ready to engage, create, and even carry theatre forward — but only if theatre evolves beyond its nostalgia and meets them where they are, with open eyes and fearless imagination.

Indeed, many young people entering theatre groups in Kolkata do so not out of love for the medium, but as a springboard to get into television or film. This is a valid observation. However, we must then ask: Why is that the case?

Because television and film offer financial security, visibility, and career prospects.

Because theatre rarely pays.

Theatre spaces often don’t reward sincerity, originality, or experimentation.

In many Kolkata groups, the structure is authoritarian. Young people are expected to follow, not create. Scripts are rarely updated. Themes are not open for critical engagement. The rehearsal process becomes a grind. In such spaces, theatre loses its allure — not because the youth are uninterested, but because the space is uninviting.

When theatre groups become poor imitations of the television industry, they claim to oppose — filled with melodrama and spectacle — young people will treat them as career stepping stones. But when theatre reclaims its roots as a radical, participatory, and intellectually vibrant space, it finds those who care deeply.

Let’s not pretend that passion alone can sustain a theatre career. Most young artists today are caught in a brutal economy marked by skyrocketing living costs, stagnant wages, academic debt, and an ever-shrinking job market. The fantasy of the “starving artist” might sound romantic to some, but in practice, it translates into anxiety, burnout, and eventual disengagement. In such a context, expecting young people to devote years of unpaid labour to theatre is, at best, unrealistic — and at worst, outright exploitative.

This isn’t just a problem of the market. It’s a structural failure that Kolkata’s theatre scene is unwilling to reckon with. Most city-based theatre groups — especially those outside government patronage or commercial circuits — offer no stipends, no transport allowances, no meals, and no long-term vision for financial sustainability. The expectation is that you will suffer for the “purity” of the art. But purity doesn’t pay rent. Reverence for art rings hollow when it comes from directors who have steady jobs or inherited wealth while expecting their cast to survive on unpaid rehearsals.

This financial precarity isn’t just a background issue — it directly affects the quality of art being produced. When artists are forced to juggle multiple side gigs, tuition classes, or gig economy jobs, the rehearsal space becomes another source of stress rather than creative liberation. Rehearsals are rushed. Turnover is high. Burnout becomes inevitable. And slowly but surely, theatre becomes a space only the privileged can afford to “care” about.

In the absence of a structural rethink, theatre becomes a sieve: the most passionate fall through. And it’s not because they didn’t love theatre. It’s because the theatre gave them no reason to stay.

Even the theatre festivals that have mushroomed across Kolkata — once seen as a beacon of possibility — now often reproduce the same issues. No travel reimbursement for outstation artists. No honorarium for shows. Audience members clap for politically charged plays, but the politics ends at the stage. Solidarity is aestheticized, not practiced.

Meanwhile, mainstream culture offers a cruel alternative. Commercial TV serials, brand collaborations, or YouTube influencer gigs may feel shallow, but they pay. And for a young artist trying to survive in a city with a rent bill, elderly parents, or EMIs, that choice is less of a sell-out and more of a survival tactic.

Ironically, some of the same theatre elders who bemoan this “brain drain” into mass media were the first to accept awards, brand partnerships, or state patronage without questioning the ideological implications. They helped create the very culture where visibility trumps value — and now they wonder why the sincere ones are leaving.

What’s even more dangerous is the silent internalization of this poverty model. Young artists are told to suffer, to “pay their dues,” and to see financial struggle as a rite of passage. But this breeds nothing but resentment. It perpetuates a culture where asking for compensation is seen as selfish, where being professional is confused with being servile, and where passion is used as an excuse for exploitation.

If we want to build a theatre culture that is vibrant, inclusive, and sustainable, we must stop romanticizing poverty and start demanding equity. That includes:

· Offering even modest honorariums.

· Ensuring travel and food allowances during intensive rehearsals or performance weeks.

· Setting up artist welfare funds through collaborations, donations, or crowdfunding.

· Building cooperative financial models that share profits transparently.

· Collaborating with NGOs, universities, and cultural trusts to create grants for grassroots theatre.

Until then, theatre will continue to lose its most committed dreamers — not because they lacked commitment, but because the system lacked the imagination and dignity to make space for them.

Traditional theatre often clings to classical formats, moralistic narratives, and outdated language. Young people today are wrestling with a different set of existential, political, and social anxieties:

Climate collapse

Gender and identity politics

Mental health

Socio-economic collapse

Digital alienation

Caste, class, political, and communal tensions

They want to engage with art that reflects these realities. But too many productions remain caught in the past, refusing to speak to the present. The rare ones that do — through devised theatre, documentary drama, or site-specific performances — often exist at the margins, unsupported by mainstream institutions.

Until theatre becomes a space where today’s fears, contradictions, and desires can be explored honestly, it will continue to feel irrelevant.

Kolkata prides itself on being the cultural and intellectual capital of India. Its iconic coffee houses, book fairs, literary festivals, and adda sessions are draped in nostalgia, conjuring images of fiery debates and passionate dissent. But today, much of this has curdled into a hollow performance — more costume than character, more pose than purpose.

What remains is a pseudo-intellectual culture: verbose, self-congratulatory, and allergic to real confrontation. In theatre circles, the rhetoric of resistance is often loud, but rarely sincere. Plays are staged under the banner of “revolution” or “critique,” yet they recycle dated classics with no reinterpretation, engage in empty posturing, or wrap safe moral tales in the borrowed glow of past glories. Serious themes — caste, communalism, gender politics, state surveillance, ecological, political, and socio-economic collapse — are either glossed over or treated in a tokenistic fashion. Dissent is permitted, but only if it’s symbolic and does not disrupt the social or political comfort zones of the urban intelligentsia.

This is not a random failure of imagination. It is systemic — and political.

Many of Kolkata’s theatre gatekeepers are either directly or indirectly aligned with dominant political ideologies. Some are associated with state-run cultural bodies. Others maintain strategic alliances with ruling parties or opposition parties — of the current iron-hand, the Left legacy and the contemporary Right — in exchange for funding, positions, or visibility. These alliances ensure that the illusion of “intellectual freedom” is preserved, while true radicalism is quietly neutered.

Politics doesn’t silence theatre by censorship alone. It co-opts it — by rewarding those who play safe, who speak in the language of resistance without embodying its risks. Funding goes to the familiar names. Panel invitations go to the well-behaved. Institutional awards are given to works that flatter the establishment while pretending to question it. This creates a culture of soft complicity, where artists become diplomats rather than agitators.

And so, pseudo-intellectualism thrives. Not as an accident — but as a function of political economy.

In this environment, the truly radical are either ignored or subtly erased. Young theatre practitioners who speak truth to power, or challenge the cultural status quo, find themselves locked out of networks, denied opportunities, or treated as naïve troublemakers. Their calls for more honest, relevant, and urgent art are patronized as “immaturity” or “impulsiveness.”

Faced with this suffocating ecosystem, it is no surprise that many of Kolkata’s most politically aware and creatively restless young people are migrating to other spaces: underground poetry collectives, documentary filmmaking, protest art, digital zines, and DIY (Do-It-Yourself) performance circuits. There, they find the very urgency, honesty, and solidarity that the mainstream theatre circuit refuses to nurture.

If Kolkata wants to reclaim its cultural soul, it must first confront the machinery of performance that props up its pseudo-intellectual identity. Theatre cannot continue to be a safe space for cowards masquerading as rebels. It must become dangerous again — politically, socially, aesthetically. Only then will it draw back the youth who are hungry not just for a stage, but for a fight worth staging.

There’s a hard pill that the older generation in theatre must swallow: You — the public, the institutions, the policymakers — wanted market-oriented reforms. Well, now you have them. So why whine now?

You demanded “professionalism” in the arts — what you meant was: profit. You pushed for brand visibility, scalability, and broad audience appeal. You prioritized crowd-pulling narratives over critical storytelling. You asked artists to be “entrepreneurial.” You clapped when theatre festivals became sponsored by liquor companies or telecom giants. You equated “reach” with relevance. You told young people that art must pay for itself — or be left behind.

So it happened. Television got louder, more formulaic. OTT platforms got faster, more click-driven. Audiences became fragmented and monetized by the algorithm. And theatre? Theatre got stuck — not because it refused to grow, but because it wasn’t allowed to evolve on its terms. It was either expected to remain “pure” and unpaid, or to commercialize itself in ways that often killed its soul.

Now, when younger actors treat theatre as a stepping stone to TV, serials, OTTs, content creation, or brand collaborations — senior practitioners cry foul. “They don’t stay.” “They’re not committed.” “They’re in it for the fame.” But weren’t you the ones who built the staircase? You left no system behind that made staying viable. No pay. No protection. No policy. No patience.

You cannot lament the loss of artistic commitment while simultaneously celebrating the very neoliberal culture that eroded the foundation of artistic integrity. You can’t expect Gen Z and Millennials to take a vow of poverty for the sake of a theatre movement that barely even acknowledges their presence unless it needs volunteers or dancers.

You (and this includes the well-fed elite cultural circles of Kolkata) cheered for privatization, reduced public arts funding, and the rise of sponsorship culture. You quietly accepted the commodification of everything — from Pujo pandals to poetry slams — so long as the veneer of culture remained intact. You turned theatre festivals into influencer photo ops. You let bureaucrats and brands decide what “good art” is.

And now, suddenly, when the field starts behaving like a marketplace, you ask: “Where are the pure artists?” The answer is brutal: they either left, broke down, or never showed up — because you left them no ecosystem to survive in.

Meanwhile, young people are not disinterested in performance or storytelling. They’re remixing old Bengali rhymes on Instagram. They’re doing climate theatre in schools. They’re running poetry collectives, immersive art labs, and underground satire nights. But they’re doing it on their terms — away from the gatekeepers who wouldn’t let them breathe.

Worse still, the same people who sold out art to capital are now the ones moralizing about “dilution.” But you can’t have it both ways. You can’t commodify art and then lament when it behaves like a commodity. You can’t push the young into survival mode and then criticize them for not being “idealistic enough.” You can’t demand mass appeal and then moan about loss of nuance.

This is particularly damning in Kolkata, where the myth of cultural resistance still floats above a deeply stagnant and elitist structure. We glorify the “adda”, but what has the adda done to confront political problems, violence, corruption, casteism, gender violence, environmental collapse, or the realities of gig economy precarity? We fetishize Ghatak and Utpal Dutt, but forget that they were radicals — not curators of nostalgia. Today’s theatre in Kolkata often avoids uncomfortable truths — not out of cowardice, but out of an ecosystem that punishes risk, discourages dissent, and rewards conformity dressed up as sophistication.

Let’s also not forget how easily politics buys off “public intellectuals.” Many of the so-called cultural custodians who cry about the decline of theatre are the very same people sitting on government panels, receiving state awards, and curating festivals that never rotate leadership. They stay silent on police brutality, caste atrocities, surveillance regimes, or displacement issues. Why? Because that kind of dissent doesn’t look good in a grant proposal. So they turn to staging Badal Sircar again — minus the radical soul, polished just enough for applause but never discomfort.

So stop asking: “Why are young people not coming to the theatre?” Start asking: “What kind of theatre did we build for them to come into?”

· One that valorizes unpaid labour?

· One that romanticizes poverty?

· One that punishes questioning?

· One that doesn’t offer contracts, dignity, or mental health support?

If theatre is to survive, it has to commit to its next generation the way it demands commitment from them. It must build new spaces, with new ethics, new economics, and new leadership. It must de-centre ego. It must stop using the language of revolution while practicing the mechanics of hierarchy.

Because if you’re not building the future, you’re clinging to a past that’s already decaying.

Another major issue is the ego-centric structure of many theatre groups. A senior director becomes a permanent authority, gatekeeping all creative decisions. Younger members are treated as apprentices or background performers, rarely given opportunities to lead projects or present original work.

This stifles creativity, frustrates sincerity, and eventually pushes away those who want to make something meaningful. Theatre that clings to hierarchy over collaboration cannot survive in an age that values authenticity and co-creation.

The future of theatre lies not in perpetuating guru-shishya models, but in creating horizontal spaces where different generations learn from each other — where wisdom is shared, not imposed.

Let’s get something straight: theatre cannot survive on nostalgia and government grants alone. While state funding for the arts is crucial and should be demanded more forcefully, sole dependence on it has created a fragile and complacent ecosystem.

Many Kolkata-based theatre groups have developed a grant addiction — waiting for the annual handout from cultural ministries, the token invitation to government festivals, or the fleeting recognition through state-sponsored awards. This model breeds short-termism, aesthetic conformity, and a disturbing lack of innovation.

Let’s be honest: grants often come with strings — implicit censorship, political allegiance, or an expectation to “not rock the boat.” Some theatre groups have become mouthpieces, careful not to offend funders or bureaucratic gatekeepers. The result? A slow death of daring. Theatre becomes predictable, sanitized, and risk-averse — everything it is not meant to be.

This dependence also creates hierarchies of access. Only the well-connected groups — those with ties to cultural bureaucrats or established networks — get consistent support. Young or radical collectives get sidelined, forced into the margins or the underground.

We must also recognize that the Indian state is no friend of dissent. In a time of increasing surveillance, censorship, and control over public discourse, waiting for the state to “save theatre” is like asking a tiger to guard a goat.

1. Develop Alternative Funding Models Crowdfunding. Subscription models. Co-productions with progressive NGOs. Membership-based cultural spaces. Ticketed rehearsals. Theatre+zine fests. Build a mosaic of small income streams instead of begging for a single patron’s approval.

2. Community-Centered Ecosystems The future lies in a theatre that serves real people — not just elite critics or ministry officials. Partner with schools, community centers, student unions, trade unions, housing cooperatives, or women’s groups. Let theatre be embedded in life, not just festivals.

3. Artist-Led Administration Instead of depending on cultural bureaucrats, train young artists in budgeting, digital marketing, tech ops, and grant writing. Let artists take charge of infrastructure, too. This decentralizes power and builds real, long-term sustainability.

4. Create Independent Archives Doesn’t care to preserve your work? Do it yourself. Record your plays, script your devising process, write zines, build digital archives. Make it easier for others to find, learn, and grow from your journey.

5. Push for Public Funding — But Without Illusions Yes, demand better arts funding. But don’t build your identity around it. Grants should supplement — not define — theatre. State support should be one pillar, not the entire structure.

Kolkata has always been proud of its “intellectual autonomy.” If that’s more than a slogan, then the theatre community must walk the talk. That means rejecting the idea that artistic survival depends solely on Sarkari lifelines.

This conversation is incomplete without addressing a reality that frustrates many senior theatre practitioners: the influx of young people who join theatre primarily to build their portfolio for television, web series, or film. The “serial-hopefuls,” the “OTT dreamers” — they’re often spoken about with contempt or derision in rehearsal rooms, as if they are pollutants in the pure stream of theatre.

But let’s pause.

In a cultural economy where theatre provides no stable income, limited visibility, and very few pathways for professional growth, it is entirely logical — even necessary — for a young performer to treat it as a stepping stone. The screen industry, for all its flaws, offers a dream: fame, money, contracts, and a future. Theatre, especially in Kolkata, often offers none of these in practical terms.

Yet, rather than understanding this economic and aspirational reality, many theatre veterans choose to scorn or stereotype these young aspirants as shallow, disloyal, or unserious.

This is not only unfair — it’s shortsighted.

The question, then, is not why they come — but what we do with them once they’re here.

If someone joins theatre to hone their acting skills for the camera, well. That’s a valid and honest aspiration. Theatre has always been a training ground for the best screen actors around the world — from Naseeruddin Shah and Konkona Sen Sharma to Irrfan Khan and Pankaj Tripathi. Before the stardom, the global fame, and the silver screen domination, Shah Rukh Khan was a theatre actor. Trained under Barry John, it was the stage that gave him his foundation in performance, spontaneity, and craft. He also attended the National School of Drama in Delhi during his early career in Bollywood. If India’s biggest superstar could begin in a rehearsal room, who are we to belittle today’s screen aspirants who do the same? Theatre isn’t a detour. It’s a launchpad — if we let it be. The difference is that in those environments, theatre-equipped actors for their screen journeys without mocking their ambitions.

So instead of pushing them to the margins or reducing them to chorus roles, bring them in.

Offer them rigorous tools of performance:

· Voice modulation and clarity

· Physical presence and movement

· Emotional layering and subtext

· Listening on stage — a skill most crucial for screen acting too

If done right, even those who walk in with dreams of television might fall in love with the process of theatre.

Many of these aspirants are already active on social media. They know how to edit reels, build followings, optimize hashtags, and shoot video content on mobile phones. Instead of seeing that as shallow, channel it.

· Let them document rehearsals and backstage life

· Encourage them to create micro-performances for Instagram or YouTube

· Invite them to design promo reels, trailers, or even music videos that connect the group to a broader audience

· Experiment with theatre-documentary hybrids or theatre films

These activities don’t “dilute” theatre. They make it accessible, visible, and contemporary.

Visibility is not vanity. It is survival in a city like Kolkata, where cultural memory often works against the present.

One of the most damaging myths in our artistic culture is that screen and stage are opposites — that you either “sell out” to cameras or remain “pure” in the theatre. This binary is both false and elitist.

The most powerful actors, globally and locally, move fluidly between mediums.

· Theatre gives them rigor.

· Screen gives them reach.

Instead of seeing screen aspirants as traitors, create works that translate across forms:

· A devised theatre piece that also becomes a short film

· A monologue performance shot as a cinematic poem

· A movement piece edited into a music video

· Script readings recorded as podcast plays

· Physical theatre experiments adapted into Instagram reels or Youtube Shorts snippets

This is not dilution. This is evolution.

Let the actor-explorers explore — across screen and stage — without shame.

Some screen aspirants may only stay for six months. Some may return after six years. But a few will stay — if they feel respected, challenged, and seen.

Theatre groups need to shift from a model of transactional use to transformative mentorship. That means:

· Trusting them with key roles, even if they’re new

· Inviting them to assist in direction, production, or script development

· Offering feedback that isn’t condescending

· Asking for their feedback in return

· Treating them as equals in the process of making

Mentorship is not about creating clones. It’s about unlocking potential.

And who knows — today’s “serial aspirant” may be tomorrow’s visionary playwright, grant funder, or even your theatre’s biggest donor.

If most young actors dream of TV and OTT, maybe it’s because television looks more rewarding. Not just economically, but aesthetically. Lighting, camera work, wardrobe, crisp scripts — TV understands the art of aspiration.

So instead of resenting their dreams, we need to ask ourselves:

· Why do our stages look dim and tired?

· Why are costumes always last-minute?

· Why is basic sound design still an afterthought?

· Why are we not investing in visual storytelling?

We must acknowledge this: theatre isn’t losing youth because it is “too complex.” It’s losing youth because it has become too complacent.

Let theatre become aspirational again — not by copying television, but by becoming the one place where authenticity, depth, rebellion, and experimentation are possible.

Many screen aspirants have short attention spans — but some have long-range vision. Theatre groups can design hybrid programs where:

· Participants train in both stage and on-camera acting

· Short films are devised from stage plays

· Theatre pieces are developed specifically for OTT adaptation

· Writing workshops involve scripting for both live and digital performance

This not only keeps aspirants engaged — it expands theatre’s reach into new audiences and new formats.

Let’s retire the tired phrase: “They only come for TV, not for theatre.”

Instead, ask:

· Why is theatre not offering them a future they can believe in?

· How can we make them want to stay?

· How do we make theatre feel urgent, exciting, and transformative?

In short: Stop vilifying the screen-bound. Help them grow. Offer them something they didn’t know they needed. You never know which TV aspirant might return one day — not just as an actor, but as a producer, funder, or even a rebel playwright.

If we want theatre to matter again — not just as art, but as a cultural force — we need more than cosmetic reforms. We need a transformation of ethos, structure, and intent. Below are not just suggestions, but urgent interventions:

Not everyone wants to do 40 takes for a soap opera or rehearse to please a TV agent. Some young people are searching for a space to question, to rebel, to create. They want to:

· Write radical plays that confront caste, capitalism, patriarchy, and climate collapse.

· Use theatre for education, community healing, and political resistance.

· Reimagine form — through movement, silence, digital tools, or raw improvisation.

Seek them out. They’re not hanging around conventional theatre groups. They’re in independent book clubs, philosophy circles, protest sites, underground music gigs, and online forums. Build bridges to those worlds.

Most rehearsal rooms in Kolkata (and beyond) are still run like feudal courts. The director is a monarch, the assistant director a loyal general, and everyone else a soldier.

This must end.

· Let rehearsals become laboratories of risk and reflection.

· Allow younger members to question the script, its politics, its form.

· Encourage collective devising, improvisation, physical exploration, and rewriting.

· Normalize feedback loops where no voice is too young or too small.

Theatre should be a living organism, not a fossil in black-box lights.

Stop fighting the digital world. Embrace it intelligently.

· Theatre can be cinematic, immersive, and interactive without becoming shallow.

· Use Instagram reels for poetic monologues, visual metaphors, or behind-the-scenes provocations.

· Collaborate with musicians, zine-makers, podcasters, digital artists.

· Host multi-modal festivals — theatre + film + poetry + graffiti + philosophy.

Let your group become a cultural ecosystem, not just a performing troupe.

Theatre cannot survive on unpaid passion forever. That model is unsustainable, classist, and exclusionary.

· Even small stipends signal respect.

· Apply for grants — not just from state bodies, but from international cultural funds, progressive NGOs, or alternative foundations.

· Create a transparent financial structure — profit-sharing for ticketed shows, travel reimbursements, or food stipends.

· Use crowdfunding, subscription models, or solidarity donations to fund radical work.

Dignity doesn’t require crores — it requires fairness.

Senior artists must shift from being unquestioned authorities to being radical facilitators.

· Share knowledge without condescension.

· Let new forms challenge your own assumptions.

· Don’t demand reverence — invite rebellion.

True legacy is not about being obeyed. It’s about being surpassed.

Enough of apolitical safety plays in the name of tradition.

· Let theatre confront the State, caste violence, patriarchy, communalism, and neoliberal decay.

· Let it be a space where dangerous questions are asked — and not just answered in poetic metaphors.

· Partner with grassroots movements, strike forums, or ecological collectives. Perform in slums, forests, campuses — not just auditoriums.

Reclaim the political muscle of the stage.

Kolkata’s theatre must stop catering to the intelligentsia echo chamber.

· Don’t perform just to impress fellow theatre people or cultural elite.

· Speak to workers, students, migrants, oppressed ones

· Use language that’s intimate, angry, hopeful — not just decorative.

Make theatre not for those who already agree, but for those who need to feel something shift inside.

Rotate directorial roles. Create collectives with shared responsibility.

· Let a light designer lead a project once.

· Let a 19-year-old scriptwriter head the next production.

· Have forums where group direction, budgeting, and artistic intent are decided by consensus.

The more we democratize, the stronger we grow.

Stop letting your work disappear after closing night.

· Film rehearsals. Record oral histories. Maintain script versions.

· Share processes online — failures, edits, breakthroughs.

· Build an open-access archive for your work, so others can learn, build, and adapt.

This isn’t vanity — it’s movement-building.

This is not just a call for reform. It’s a call to revolutionize.

If you are a senior artist reading this: step aside where needed. Make room. Let the young rebuild theatre in the image of this moment — not yours.

If you are a young artist: don’t wait for permission. Form collectives. Occupy spaces. Write your own damn plays. Collaborate, rebel, fail, begin again.

Because theatre isn’t dying. Theatre is being held hostage.

And it’s time we stormed the stage.

To say young people don’t care about theatre is like saying plants don’t want to grow. The problem isn’t the seed — it’s the soil. If theatre spaces are rigid, irrelevant, and unrewarding, how can we expect sincere young people to stay?

But if we create fertile ground — spaces that are ideologically bold, structurally open, and financially conscious — theatre will bloom again.

The youth are not running away from the theatre. They are waiting for the theatre to become worth running toward.

The responsibility is not theirs alone. It is ours.

We live in an age that doesn’t need art that soothes — it needs art that detonates. If theatre wants to reclaim its role in shaping history, it can’t whisper in drawing rooms. It has to become ruptured. It has to become a threat.

“There are decades where nothing happens, and there are weeks where decades happen.” — Vladimir Lenin

Not to destroy for destruction’s sake — but to force a reckoning. To clear space for what must be born.

This article is based on lived experiences, conversations, and observations from within Kolkata’s theatre circuit. It is a call not to abandon tradition, but to evolve it — so that the stage may once again become a site of transformation, not just repetition.

If you’re reading this and feel what I feel — let’s build something real. Let’s make theatre dangerous again. Let’s make it ours.