Anuradha Kapur is a Professor of Acting and Direction at the National School of Drama (NSD), New Delhi. She has written widely on theatre. Her book, Actors, Pilgrims, Kings and Gods: the Ramlila at Ramnagar was published by Seagull Books, Calcutta (1993, 2004). She has taught and directed in India and abroad and most of her directorial works have been in collaboration with visual and video artistes. Among the artistes she has worked with are Arpita Singh, Bhupen Khakhar, Ein Lall, Madhusree Dutta, Nalini Malani, Nilima Sheikh, Sumant Jayakrishnan, and Vivan Sundaram. Anuradha co-directed, with Makoto Sato, No Boat in Sight, a dancetheatre collaboration between Indian and Japanese dancers, which travelled to India and Japan between December January 20022003.

Amplifying on her role as direction teacher of NSD, Anuradha says, “I help the students to develop the power of their imagination. In fact, the text of a play belongs to the literature department while a stage play belongs to the dramatics department. I help the students to transform a text to a stage play. A person needs to visualise the directorial lines by reading the text of a play. In fact, a person should have sound aesthetic sense as well as the vision to become a quality director.”

Anuradha is one of the founder members of Vivadi, a working group of painters, musicians, writers and theatre practitioners, which was formed in 1989. Her theatre work has travelled to Germany, Japan, Brazil, UK, and Korea, among other countries. In 2003, she was invited to curate the performance titled “Actors at Work at body city”.

She says, “Vivadi is a Delhi-based theatre group. Several of our productions have got plaudits. But, in Delhi shows do not run for a long period. Because of the dominance of the film industry and TV plays, young people are less interested in theatre. And I think this is a common problem all over the world. Many young people who come to theatre use it as a stepping stone. Having achieved this end, they switch over to some other medium, as professionalism has not yet been introduced.”

How can professionalism be introduced in the subcontinent? “Unlike Europe or America, we cannot expect government support. In our subcontinent, professionalism can be introduced in some other way. If, for instance, drama is introduced at the school level, then a lot of theatre activists will qualify for jobs. Thus they will get the opportunity to continue in theatre,” says Anuradha.