Now, learn how to manage the stage

Learn from theatre stalwarts like Sanjna Kapoor and Sunil Shanbag, who will conduct SMART — a management course that looks at making theatre practices sustainable

Sameera Iyengar and Sanjna Kapoor, directors of theatre company, Junoon, have now founded SMART (Strategic Management in the Art of Theatre), which has been conceptualised by India Theatre Forum. The 10-day residential course followed by a six-month mentorship programme hopes to give the managerial aspect of theatre a major shot in the arm.

All the facilitators of the SMART workshop

“In the 1990s, when I began working at Prithvi Theatre, OP Jain of Sanskriti Foundation in Delhi was dreaming of setting up a performing arts management-training programme at one of the IIMs.

Sanjna Kapoor

Sadly, this never came into being. However, it was at my few interactions at his seminars aimed at building the curriculum that I realised that it was essential to look at our Indian reality if we needed to address management concerns in the theatre,” says Kapoor.

Sameera Iyengar

She also informs that keeping this in mind, SMART has the best of the brains and talent supporting this, especially in the presence of Milena Dragicevic Secic, who is the UNESCO Chair in Cultural Policy and Management and has set up and designed the Cultural Management programme and Cultural and Media Studies at the University of the Arts, Belgrade, Serbia.

Milena Dragicevic Sesic

There is great stress on drawing from indigenous practices in the curriculum, as Iyengar shares, "This is another unique feature; allowing participants to learn from existent practices as they work to develop their own frameworks of strategic management, to make their theatre dreams soar."

There will be discussions on ways and means of fundraising, what sources can be approached, how to create proposals, what is the readiness required for a group to begin engaging with fundraising, etc — but what would be more important for groups would be to see fundraising not as a separate limb but as an integral part of 'why they do theatre'. 
 - Arundhati Ghosh, India Foundation for the Arts and Course Tutor 

Deadline: September 30
Log on to: www.theatreforum.in
Cost: Rs 15,000 for two people

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