Supporting act

BENGALURU: The struggle of artistes during the pandemic goes without saying. Online shows may have compensated only to a certain extent, leaving many wondering about the road ahead. For those, like theatre practitioner Abhishek Iyengar, who eat, think and live theatre, the only choice has been to keep going. Giving the founder of WeMove Theatre a boost is a financial grant from Facebook, which he received recently.

“In August last year, I came across this application calling different for profit organisations to come forward if they were hit by the pandemic,” he says. So naturally, he went ahead and applied, and the result has been a pleasant surprise. “A part of the money was given in cash and the rest, which is awaited, will be given as Facebook credit,” he says, adding that the average grant is about `1 lakh. 

The application process involved explaining why his company has suffered most during the pandemic, and how Covid-19 has impacted him. “There’s no doubt that performing arts has been severely affected but we’ve had the resilience to keep going. Whatever the challenges have been, we have tried to stay afloat,” he says. He sent in a proposal that brought to light how theatre neither falls under skilled or unskilled labour and has little or no support from the government, and this bagged him the grant. 

The written application, which also required legal documents regarding the company, involved some back and forth for clarifications. “Like parts of the proposal may have required fine-tuning, which is when they would re-connect with us,” he says.  Now with this fund in hand, Iyengar will be utilising it towards the rent of their rehearsal space in Jayanagar as well as to organise a playwriting festival soon. 

“Day by day, the number of playwrights is dwindling. The idea of this festival is to bring together budding and emerging writers who will be mentored by eminent personalities,” he says. Currently working on a play, Lockdown, Iyengar is documenting the “biggest crisis of humanity” in this piece of Kannada-English work, which will be staged sometime in February or March.