| ashu |
Posted
on 02-Mar-01 12:46 PM
One of the advantages of living in a place like
Boston or New York is that, if you are interested,
you get to go to a lot of excellent
theater productions.
In Boston,the student theater productions are
many, inexpensive and entertaining. The American
Repertory Theater on Brattle Street near Harvard
Square was where I was lucky enough to watch
a number of professional productions -- both
classics and experimental works.
In Kathmandu, the theater scene is so-so, despite
there being a number of excellent stage actors and
directors. On talking with people like Anup Baral,
Saroj Aryal, Sunil Pokharel and others what becomes
clear is this.
There are few theater production companies in town,
and even those that exist are not good at
making the cost of producing theater recoverable.
As a result, either plays need to be subsidized
heavily by some organizations, or they do not
get produced at all.
Often, it's the fact that plays do NOT get produced
at all.
Some of us think that that need NOT be the case.
What if there is -- on a non-profit basis -- a
theater production company that uses business
strategies to sell good plays to the public
once every two months?
What if that company takes care of the production
and technical costs, while the directors and the
actors focus on staging great plays?
This division of labor, so common in the West,
has not really been a part of the Nepali theater
scene. Perhaps if we want to revive REGULAR
theater (of both Nepali and translated plays) in
Kathmandu, may be we need to establish a theater
prouction company along sound business principles.
Enter the Kathmandu Theater Initiative.
The goal of the KTI - run by theater-enthusiasts and
NOT by actors themselves -- is to create conditions
for theater to flourish on the stages of Kathmandu.
Doing this will not be easy, and we will make lots
of mistakes. But we have a pretty good team of strong-willed people, and hope to start producing plays ON A
REGULAR BASIS in a few months.
Our greatest challenge is to create this KTI
institution is such a way that it gets going
even if the original founders move on to
other pursuits. Let's see how this goes.
Suggestions, and comments are welcome.
oohi
ashu
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