From school and college students to educated homemakers and service professionals, the audience for English dramas is growing in Nagpur.
The current scene is different from the situation 4-5 years ago, when it was difficult to draw people to watch a play in a language other than Hindi or Marathi and the change augurs well for the theatre industry.
According to Vikas Khurana, who is popularly known as the 'theatre guru' of Nagpur, and has founded Stagecraft, about six plays are produced on an average in a year by his group, with 3-4 shows of a play at a time, running to packed houses.
A disciple of Satyadev Dubey, Om Puri and Naseeruddin Shah, he is primarily responsible for introducing English theatre to Vidarbhaites in 2003 and has worked with the veterans at Prithivi Theatre in Mumbai.
"Central India is essentially a Hindi speaking belt and there are several theatre groups in all major towns and cities but all of them stage plays in regional languages like Marathi, Gujarati and Hindi. But ours is the only English theatre group. The closest English theatre is either in Pune or in Hyderabad," he told PTI.
The group works with convents, public schools and professional colleges, conducting theatre workshops and stage plays for them on a regular basis.
Khurana says theatre has to start at the grassroot level and hence he opts for schools and colleges.
"There is no dearth of talent there," he said.
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