The theatre is one of the first forms of practicing art. Since the Stone Age, men and women have told stories establishing them when there wasn’t even a language. Ancient Greek cinema still motivates us, and continues to be organized in all the languages of the world.
The ancient Hindu scriptures refer to the text of the theory of the creation of art (Natya Shashtra) as the 5th Veda (Pancham Veda). And like Greek cinema, ancient Indian Sanskrit cinema was also highly developed. However, with the advent of cinema and television, cinema has experienced a severe struggle to attract audiences.
Playwrights, but also theatre groups and teams had to reinvent themselves in various ways. Sometimes they have been successful, but we still have a long way to go. Technical advances in film and television media continue to attract the target market with their glamour and brilliance.
But we stopped working to understand that film has a special appeal. Thornton Wilder, the famous playwright, once said: “I refer to the theater as the greatest of all art forms, the most immediate way in which a person can additionally show a sense of what it means to be a human being. This supremacy of the theater derives from the fact that it is constantly on stage “now.
There is something wonderful about seeing a line of actors in front of you on the stage telling you a story that you share with a room full of people.
I feel that individuals in a group who are enjoying something en masse react differently, and perhaps even more strongly, than they do in their living rooms. When we see live cinema on stage, we can feel, we can see ourselves – when we see a great cinema, we have a virtually life-changing experience.
The power of the phase is considerable, because it is real, not fake like in the movies. Thornton Wilder puts it this way: “We stay in what is, but we find a thousand ways not to face it. Great cinema makes our teachers better at dealing with it.” It’s not like anybody goes to the theater anymore.
In 2005, 12.5 million people saw Broadway shows in New York City, and about 8.5 million people probably went to the Broadway theater. Even for good, first-class local theaters, it will be difficult to get a ticket if you don’t buy it in advance.
However, one of the most neglected theaters in the U.S. is the Community Playhouse. They strive to reach a large audience. They rely on these small donations as well as the contributions of the many applicants.
Ethnic theatre groups (like ours), which show films in their regional languages, even have a minimal target market. We often have to struggle with difficulty – how can we load our cinemas with our own audience?
The problem is that most of the plays we produce don’t work to get in touch with the people around us. They don’t feel this impressive experience when they enjoy the renaissance or the old standards of Bengali cinema. The only value is the nostalgia that these pieces evoke in us, nothing else.
The second point is that these productions do not have the stellar power to appeal to the target market. Some teams have tried to bring in stars and directors from India to attract the target market, but that cannot be the solution. And finally, there is certainly a lack of production funds to rent a cinema, produce a pleasant phase and market the show in popular media like television.
To reach the target market, the initial condition is that we must give individuals the opportunity to find out about the event. Low-cost marketing methods such as online marketing, some print media, brochures and posters can only reach a minimum number of people.
However, I think that in order to generate an audience in this country, the first thing we have to do is develop our own cinema that can get in touch with our people quickly.
We must develop and create plays that can show our own life on the stage, and only then will our individuals tend to see their own plays. We (Ethnomedia Center for Movie Theater Arts) have been trying to do this for some time and have had partial success.