Directing Change

By challenging established hierarchies and practices, Anuradha Kapur has influenced India’s theatre landscape in no small way.

- Vikram Phukan

Anuradha Kapur’s has been a distinguished career. One that has spanned almost five decades, and which hasn’t quite lulled the enthusiasm with which the director and pedagogue continues to negotiate new territory in the performing arts.

From creating linkages between theatre and early feminist protest, to being honoured with the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award in the field of direction in 2004, from authoring a book on the Ramlila of Ramnagar to a prestigious six-year tenure as director of the National School of Drama (NSD), Kapur has arguably had an influence much beyond the confines of academic institutions. An example that highlights this is her recent engagement as theatre curator for the Serendipity Arts Festival in Goa, whose third edition begins this December.

Kapur’s advent took place in the 1970s, during what she describes as a veritable renaissance in Hindi theatre. As part of Om Shivpuri’s Dishantar group, she acted in several plays including Mohan Rakesh’s seminal Aadhe Adhure. Later, after completing her post-graduation in drama and theatre arts from the University of Leeds in the UK, she joined NSD as associate professor in 1981. “I had left for England, very clear in my head that I would like to pursue this profession. Joining drama school almost immediately meant working in theatre without worrying about a sideline to sustain it,” she says.

At NSD, she directed several productions over the years, but one of her most talked-about productions was