Economics of Theatre in Rural and Urban India Dr. Keshava S. R. Faculty, Post Graduate Department of Economics, Bangalore University, Bangalore, India Online published on 5 July, 2014. Abstract Indian theatre is at least 5000 years old and is inseparable part of Indian culture. Indian theater in course of its long journey has influenced the rest of the world's theater and in turn also has imbibed few features of the rest of world's theater. The western influence is more on urban theater than the rural theater. The reason for it is undoubtedly an economic one. The paper attempts to identify the difference and common features between urban theatre and rural theatre as well as assess and analyze the economics of urban theatre and rural theatre. In order to know the economics of urban and rural theatre, the primary data was collected from 20 amateur theatre performers from three districts of Karnataka namely Bangalore, Kolar and Chitradurga. The rural production unit due to limited resources and difficulty in getting female lead from their village, due to social factors get the actress from urban India. They are generally paid from Rs 5000 to Rs. 10,000 for a show with the responsibility of performing all the female roles of the play. The rural theatre initiates the process to perform by hiring a director to train them. The director generally will be acquainted with music, lighting, costumes apart from direction. The director will be hired with a lump sum payment between Rs.8000 to Rs. 10,000 whereas in urban areas the remuneration for trained director it varies from Rs.15, 000 to 40,000. The rural and urban theatres are different in theme selection and budget of the plays. Ruralities enjoy the roles they are playing and do it for their artistic pleasure, whereas in urban India, apart from the artistic pleasure, performers also get the remuneration for their performance. Top Keywords Economics of Theatre, Rural India, Urban India, Indian Theatre, Rural Theatre, Urban Theatre, Economics of Theatre, Backdrop, Costumes, Lighting, Production Costs, Cost Affordability, Source of Funds. Top |