Strategic Management in the Art of Theatre (SMART) Programme

The Strategic Management in the Art of Theatre (SMART) programme, after ten years (2013-2023), through its many avatars, closed in 2024. The programme worked to build capacity for theatre groups across India, witnessing them turn into robust organisations that support their creative work through thoughtful and innovative management. This was a collaborative project led by Core Team Members - Arundhati Ghosh, Ashish Mehta, Menaka Rodriguez, Neel Chaudhuri, Sameera Iyengar, and Sunil Shanbag (also previously including Sanjna Kapoor, Sudhanva Deshpande and Swati Apte); supported by Darshana Dave and Rupali Bhave; and managed by India Foundation for the Arts (also previously including Junoon and India Theatre Forum).

While our work has been a drop in the bucket, it was gratifying to be India’s first and only capacity-building programme for theatre practitioners that aimed to build knowledge, skills and expertise for an effective theatre practice by using knowledge and experiences consolidated from within the Indian theatre community, as it evolved over the years in response to changing contexts around us, and also driven by our desire to reach theatre practitioners and groups across the country. 

Here’s a recap of the life of SMART Programme:

We began our journey in 2014, with two editions of residential SMART Course in 2015 and 2016 each, both held in Bangalore, with a total of 57 participants, representing 34 diverse theatre groups, from 17 cities and towns across 10 states who delved into the programme. Catch a glimpse into the SMART Course through this SMART Film.

CCRT-NSD Workshop, October 2015: Upon invitation SMART conducted a five-day customised workshop for the second-year students at the National School of Drama (NSD), funded by Centre for Cultural Resources and Training (CCRT), created factoring in the specific needs of this younger group, with more varied paths ahead of them and much less experience on the ground as theatre professionals. The Facilitators comprised Arundhati Ghosh, Sameera Iyengar, Sudhanva Deshpande, Sunil Shanbag and Swati Apte from the then core team, along with two outside experts - Devika Rani Sathyamoorthy (Copyrights and Best Practices) and Noshir Dadrawala (Legal Compliance).

Next, through SMART on Wheels, from March 2017 to February 2018, we made connections and research effort to reach theatre communities across the country, through daylong sessions in seven cities - Bikaner (Rajasthan), Agartala (Tripura), Patna (Bihar), Bareilly (Uttar Pradesh), Pune and Mumbai (Maharashtra) and New Delhi, with a total of over 205 theatre professionals across 120 theatre groups, including 17 individual participants (not affiliated with a theatre group), from 20 cities across India, participating in it.

The findings from SMART on Wheels led to the 3-day SMART Workshop travelling module, structured around individual sessions on topics relevant to theatre and arts management, as well as exercises, conversations and interactions with the participants that sought to look into their own experience and context. From November 2018 to March 2020, the workshops travelled to five cities across India - Bangalore (Karnataka), Bikaner (Rajasthan), Madhyamgram/Kolkata (West Bengal), Mulanthuruthy/Kochi (Kerala), and Pune (Maharashtra), with over 96 participants across 68 theatre groups from 37 cities across India involved in these workshops.

In the pandemic years, from September 2020 onwards, SMART evolved into an online avatar and conducted several activities, keeping the theatre community connected and engaged:

• SMART In the Round (SIR) — a series of six curated online conversations on creativity, culture and context — addressed topics of concern and relevance for theatre communities. These conversations were held on Zoom and streamed live on SMART’s Facebook page: 

1. SMART In the Round #1: On Fear, Funding and Freedom of Expression: Artistic Freedom in 2020, with Aditi Mangaldas, Bose Krishnamachari, Purva Naresh, and Sambhaji Bhagat as panelists, in conversation with Vinutha Mallya, as the moderator. 
2. SMART In the Round #2: On Why We Do What We Do - A conversation between Deepika Arwind and Maya Krishna Rao.
3. SMART In the Round #3: On Community, with Anurupa Roy, Nisha Abdulla, Sanjoy Ganguly & Sapan Saran as panelists, in conversation with Sameera Iyengar, as the moderator.
4. SMART In the Round #4: On Space, with Kallol Bhattacharya, Manu Jose, Michaela Talwar & Rupali Bhave as panelists, in conversation with Sunil Shanbag, as the moderator.
5. SMART In the Round #5 On Experiment, with Lapdiang Syiem, Mallika Taneja, Mohit Takalkar & Vivek Madan as panelists, in conversation with Neel Chaudhuri, as the moderator.
6. SMART In the Round #6: On The Ideas of Consent in Intimate Practices, with Mandeep Raikhy, Neha Vyaso, and Sharanya Ramprakash, as panelists, in conversation with Arundhati Ghosh, as the moderator.

• An online SMART Workshop was held in December 2020 over 3 days, which was attended by 18 practitioners from across the country.
   
• Five researchers were commissioned by SMART to collect stories of courage, resilience, and sustenance from 20 theatre groups through interviews towards building a selection of Case Studies to support the SMART pedagogy.

What started as an endeavour for the field of theatre has attempted to reach out to a diversity of theatre practitioners, across the country, and over the years, has involved SMART participants from different backgrounds, practices, languages, idioms and thought systems.

We thank all our donors for partnering with us throughout this meaningful journey. Over the years, SMART has been supported by Goethe-Institut / Max Mueller Bhavan, New Delhi; Norwegian Royal Embassy; Infrastructure Leasing and Financial Services (IL&FS); and the Bajaj Group. Additionally, SMART received venue support from Goethe-Institut / Max Mueller Bhavan, Mumbai, and Industrial Design Centre (IDC), IIT Mumbai; delegate support from the Italian Embassy and British Council, Wales, UK; and in-kind support from Indigo Airlines. In 2020, during the pandemic, the activities under SMART were funded by the International Relief Fund of the German Federal Foreign Office, the Goethe-Institut, and other partners.