Chennai: Ever increasing production costs and lukewarm encouragement from the government are giving English theatre artistes in the city a tough time.
Several theatre directors say the present generation of actors has very few spaces for rehearsals.
Theatre artistes in the city say they are staging plays, irrespective of production costs, only out of their passion for theatre. According to them, the performing art, which was going through a crucial phase, needs attention and encouragement from the government and people.
“The cost of staging a play has almost tripled in three years and there are fewer venues for rehearsals and to stage a play, several auditorium managers have stopped offering their spaces for English theatre performances,” said Dushyanth Gunashekar, creative head, Crea Shakthi.
Actors say  unlike several other cities in the world Chennai had very little space. "Foreign countries have  dedicated centres. We need more venues for theatre. And this lack of infrastructure, despite Chennai’s enviable theatre heritage, is something theatre artistes in the city are very concerned about,” said Srutanjay Narayanan, upcoming student theatre director form Anna Varsity.
Experienced artistes in the city urge the government to reduce the cost of renting auditoriums of all government auditoriums. "The government should make auditoriums more cost efficient.
Grants from the government to theatre troupes will greatly benefit budding production houses in the city. Tariffs charged by the Egmore museum theatre can also be reduced," said Freddy Koikaran, creative director, Stagefright Productions.
Meanwhile artists say getting sponsors continue to be a sticking point. " The college theatre troops find it easier to get sponsorships however upcoming theater groups are finding it difficult to get sponsors," said Pooja Balu, Actor at Stray factory. 
Drama draws more number of youthDC correspondentChennai July 20
With GenX subjected to many distractions, the number of young people going to the theatre has declined even as the number of young theatre groups in the city has burgeoned. Theatre directors say those who watch English theatre number a few thousand.The government therefore needs to offer them grants to create awareness among younger audiences.Senior theatre artists say that though there has been an increase in youth participation, Chennai’s audiences are not yet theatre-literate and there is no significant rise in audience attendance.“Young performers have been getting more opportunities than before, but due to the inflation in production costs, reaching out to people has become difficult,” said Freddy Koikaran, creative director, Stagefright Productions.Experts in the field who applaud the passion of the young advise them to hone their language skills. “Several young artistes are not giving language adequate importance; Meanwhile, young theatre artists say  staging productions is becoming a popular activity among their ilk. Most of the plays are inspired by real-life situations; and acting in a play helps us get ideas on facing reality. speaking like stock sitcom characters seems to be the trend. Young actors are not reading enough plays and literature," said V. Balakrishnan, artistic director, Theatre Nisha.It is a process of learning values,” said Tanvi Patel, artistic director, Crea Shakthi.