Theatre or theatre as described by Wikipedia “is a collaborative form of fine art that uses live performers, typically actors or actresses, to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a stage.” Theatres as a discipline of fine arts, exhibit various forms of performances such as through dance, narration and so on.
The six elements of theatre include plot, character, thought, diction, music, and spectacle and each one of them plays a pivotal role in itself and is also connected to rest of the elements, in some way or the other. Theatre is a sheer means of entertainment, which takes their audience through a journey of high moral ethics. From ancient times, versatile and renowned personalities like Kalidasa who wrote Abhijñānaśākuntalam, Bharata Muni who wrote NatyaShastra and Bhavabhuti who wrote Mahavircharita, were setting the trend for Indian Theatre and their contributions to the field have been both magnanimous and magnificent.
In the modern times theatre is once again gaining its importance and the art has been revived by many veterans who are giving the industry some of their finest performances. Some notable theatre groups are Indian People’s Association theatre, Samahaara, Rangayana, Prithvi Theatre and many more. Actors like Shah Rukh Khan, Shabana Azmi, Anupam Kher and other such veterans gradually shifted from theatre to cinema but they maintain that their knowledge of acting and cinema is all thanks to theatre, which is the perfect teacher in a sense.
Academy of Fine Arts, Girish Mancha, Kalidasa Kalakendram, to name a few, have made it possible for such notable groups to perform their plays successfully over the years and contemporary arts have their own niche and place in the industry now. Indian theatre has definitely evolved with time and the audience seems to appreciate every bit.
