Bandra's new village theatre

A new black box theatre space in Mumbai wants to embed itself within the community

- Prachi Sibal

Mumbai's Bandra suburb has become synonymous with all things culinary with its bustling hipster cafés and restaurants. However, the neighbourhood has been missing on small and intimate performance spaces for theatre. Chapel Road's Haiku and Cuckoo Club shut their doors before the covid-19 pandemic, and St Andrew's Centre for Philosophy and Performing Arts held its space for a long time until finally shuttering last year. So, with the Jeff Goldberg School of Performing Arts, a method acting and filmmaking school, moving base from Khar to the fishing village of Chimbai in July, Bandra's audiences finally have a black box theatre—a flexible performance space with black walls and floor allowing for different formats of theatre—right in their neighbourhood.