Theatre Is Magic Again
Reclaiming the Room Where Wonder Happens
There is a small, incandescent truth I keep returning to: theatre is a machine for wonder. I felt that as a young audience member — the hush, the way a single light could fold a room into a new world — and I feel it again now, urgent and possible. A recent Times of India piece captured the same ache for return and for audiences to feel that magic again “Theatre is magic, and it’s time audiences felt it again”. That plea is my plea too: theatre must re-open itself to wonder, not only to survive but to heal and re-enchant our public life.
Why the urgency? A little nostalgia, a lot of faith
The pandemic taught us many things — including how fragile shared rituals can be. When theatres went dark, we learned to watch and applaud through glass and screens. Those virtual experiences kept art alive, and I wrote about the power and limits of digital theatre during lockdowns “Gaining Ground : Virtually”. Yet liveness is not a luxury: it is a different species of knowing. Live audiences co-create the event; the actor and the room invent something that cannot be recorded away without loss.
We must recover that live chemistry, with compassion for the costs theatres and artists endured. But recovery needs more than longing — it needs practical, immediate ideas.
Practical steps to recapture audience wonder
Reimagine the arrival: transform the foyer and wait into part of the play. Simple cues — ambient sound, a brief pre-show moment with a performer in the lobby, or a short spoken invitation to silence and presence — shift expectation from consumption to participation.
Program ‘gateway’ shows: curate shorter, affordable pieces that act as entry points. Two-handers, intimate monologues, and short-form ensemble pieces are low-cost to produce and excellent at building word-of-mouth.
Flexible pricing and community seats: reserve a portion of tickets at lower prices for students, unsalaried workers, and first-time attendees. Win back a habit by making a first visit frictionless.
Restore ritual around intermission: use the pause to create encounters — a brief Q&A, a musician, or a storyteller — so the night becomes a communal ritual again.
Invest in training front-of-house: ushers are cultural ambassadors. Teach them to welcome, orient, and explain the live experience; their warmth can turn curiosity into regular attendance.
Partnerships with local organizations: collaborate with schools, clubs, and civic groups to bring new audiences and co-create outreach programs that explain why live theatre matters.
A concrete example: two-handers and Aadyam-style support
Consider a simple, practical model: produce a two-hander (two actors onstage) supported by a festival or patronship like Aadyam. Two-handers are intimate, powerful, and repeatable. With a modest set, tight rehearsal, and strong marketing focused on the human story, such a show can tour small venues, colleges, and community halls. A festival-style partner can underwrite production costs for a short run, subsidize training workshops, and run outreach that invites first-time audience members.
This combination — minimal production footprint, strong actor-audience proximity, and festival backing — returns us quickly to the kind of immediacy that creates wonder.
Virtual vs live: complementary, not interchangeable
Digital performance widened access in dark times and will remain a tool to reach remote audiences. But it is not a perfect substitute. Virtual shows can broaden reach and create pre- or post-show communities; live shows deliver the embodied surprise, the shared intake of breath, the tiny improvisations birthed by audience reactions. Use both: stream a talkback, archive an excerpt, but keep the core event live whenever possible.
What theatre-makers and audiences can do — now
For theatre-makers:
- Design with audience ritual in mind. Make the whole night feel like an initiation into something communal.
- Keep production scales varied. Alternate large spectacles with spare, intense two-handers and site-specific pieces.
- Rebuild community through membership, workshops, and open rehearsals.
For audiences:
- Come early, bring friends, and treat a performance as a gift to your collective imagination.
- Be curious about small companies and local festivals. Your attendance matters more to them.
- Talk about what you saw. Word-of-mouth is theatre’s oxygen.
A forward-looking invitation
I believe the work ahead is both practical and soulful. We can rebuild audiences not by pretending everything is back to normal but by creating experiences that matter — affordable, intimate, surprising, and generous. If we do this, theatre will once again be where strangers meet, imagine together, and leave the world with a softened, expanded heart.
So here is my call to arms: theatre-makers, retool your living rooms onstage; invite the city in. Audiences, come back intentionally — not as passive consumers but as co-conspirators in shared imagination. Let us insist that the room be remade into a place where wonder can happen.
Regards,
Hemen Parekh
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