Sanjna Kapoor is going completely potty. In the middle of the Maths Month and on the verge of presenting Complicite's award-winning play, A Disappearing Number, next week, the lady's has a thousand and one things she needs to get done by the weekend.
Sanjna Kapoor is going completely potty. In the middle of the Maths Month and on the verge of presenting Complicite's award-winning play, A Disappearing Number, next week, the lady's has a thousand and one things she needs to get done by the weekend. The head of Prithvi takes time-out (albeit with many interruptions) to talk about her favourite subject theatre:
Adde-baazi
Our political leaders always talk about flyovers, monorails, skyscrapers, amusement parks to make our city world-class. But it's shocking that no one really talks about creating spaces for artistic and cultural engagement. We have theatres like Shivaji Mandir, Bhaidas, Dinanath but theatre isn't just about production and performances. I can see that Marathi theatre is losing out on talent because of lack of experimental spaces like the Chhabildas school hall. We need addas which will create a lively, pulsating environment of their own and will then be conducive to the germination of new ideas and experiments. For theatre to thrive in our city, we need more venues like Prithvi that bring together performers to engage with each other and audiences.u00a0u00a0u00a0u00a0u00a0u00a0u00a0u00a0 
Value at hand
Creating value is critical to the existence of this industry. The free-pass culture doesn't really work. Audiences need to be encouraged to pay for tickets, however little the amount may be. Having said that, we do have a good ticket-buying audience. London's Westend audience is full of white hair; their theatres are full of old people and tourists. That's not the case with India. Our younger generation is extremely interested in the performing arts. As a people, we are a very sociable lot. Even with all the technology that isolates us from each other, our youth is keen to connect and engage and that's encouraging.
Numbers count
Theatre is about ideas and opportunities; it is about going out into the public domain and connecting with audiences. The Maths Month was an effort to show that theatre can also achieve this. We've organised workshops in schools, film screenings, readings, a maths lab, live performances and finally this play. Thankfully, maths as a subject tickled corporates as well; they've been very excited about backing us for a change. We've been wanting to get Complicite to perform here for two years and it's finally come together now. We've always wanted theatre to generate its own value; and that's what we've been pulling out our hair and suffering so many sleepless nights for (smiles)!
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