The idea of the playwright as the hard-nosed idealist sacrificing riches for the sake of art is a myth. “The inflation costs are crazy. Hiring a space for rehearsal costs money. Plus, you cannot really rehearse a play for hours, in Mumbai, without an AC,” states Chanakya Vyas. The head of the Niloufer Sagar Alumni Production Grant at Drama School Mumbai understands that theatre is no longer a zero-pay venture. In a year when the Hormuz Strait dominates all things, it is no surprise that a conversation about theatre veers into gas prices.

But Vyas has a point. The alumni grant, founded in 2021, was created to provide support to theatremakers in the post-pandemic era. The process began almost a year ago with 37 applicants. “We work with the jury led by Shernaz Patel, Anitha Santhanam, and Sharmishta Saha, to whittle it down to the five finalists,” he says. Founder Jehan Manekshaw calls it the culmination of a ‘seven-month-long creative process’. Since the founding of the school in 2013, the founder has seen the city’s theatrical scene evolve in leaps and bounds.