Their stage

Some students actively take up part-time acting,music composing and play-wrighting and enrich city's amateur theatre

Some students actively take up part-time acting,music composing and play-wrighting and enrich city’s amateur theatre

For18-year-old Aneesha Srinivasan,acting has always been a passion. She juggles between her journalism course classes at the Symbiosis Institute of Mass Communication,Viman Nagar,and other daily activities to keep a good part of the evening aside for her theatre rehearsals. Srinivasan is among a host of youngsters who have taken to part-time acting and other work associated with city theatre groups for perfecting their skills on and off the stage. I began learning speech and drama when I was eight years old. Acting in plays was perhaps just an extension to my drama classes, says Srinivasan,who is a part of Orchestrated Q’works,a city-based English theatre group which stages experimental plays. She has participated in four of their productions which include Sapphire Butterfly Blue and Toba Tek Singh . Though Srinivasan has been a regular in the group,she is not contemplating taking it up as a full-time profession. I will go to Mumbai to learn more but surely not think about acting as a career option, she says. Acting as a profession doesn’t come with a good pay package, agrees Angad Patwardhan,24,an actor with Niche Stagekraft.

Unlike Srinivasan and Patwardhan,20-year-old Siddharth Kulkarni has been pursuing engineering to become an actor. He sees himself as a theatre personality five years down the line despite his degree. Once I complete my engineering,I will opt for a degree in Arts and Culture to help me improve my acting prowess, Kulkarni says. He has been staging classical plays for over a year now. I was a part of experimental theatre for a long time. But later decided to come back to more linear story lines and clichéd plots through classical theatre. They are more like a challenge now, says Kulkarni.

The stage has not only reached out to budding actors but also students who toil behind the curtains. Saaket Kanetkar,21,composed music for over three plays produced by Natak Company,a city-based Marathi theatre group. We do not get paid for any of the assignments but it is a good platform to learn. We have the freedom to be creative unlike other commercial play groups which only demand swift work. This limits the imagination of a music composer, says Kanetkar,who is a sound engineering student. Kanetkar chose to be with Natak Company for the same reason. For 23-year old Alok Rajwade,a Sociology student at University of Pune,the stage is a connecting bridge between the subject he studies and real life. Theatre is all about society and human behaviour. It helps me pen down stories in a better way, says Rajwade,a playwright with Natak Company.

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Viman Nagar