KARACHI: It seems that high ticket prices for theatre are becoming the norm. Whether it is the recently concluded Sawa 14 August, penned by Anwar Maqsood, that was priced at Rs1,500 or Aap Ki Sonia, starring prominent TV actors Sajid Hasan and Mehwish Hayat, with a ticket price of Rs1,000 or Avanti: The Grand Musical, an adaptation of Madhuri Dixit’s film Aaja Nachle, that is charging Rs1,000 for its daily shows currently running at the Karachi Arts Council.

For an average family of four persons, it comes down to a whopping Rs6,000 in case of watching a theatre performance such as Angan Terha, Sawa 14 August or it comes down to a considerable Rs4,000 in case of watching the likes of Cinder Jutt, Avanti, Aap Ki Sonia and Dhani.

Theatre makers argue that they have no choice but to pass on their costs of production to the theatregoers whereas some theatre practitioners have found ways to make the ticket prices relatively inexpensive and not pass on their costs of production to the theatregoers.

“Just our props and costumes for Sawa 14 August cost us between Rs5 million and Rs6 million,” said Dawar Mahmood, director of Kopykats productions such as Angan Terha, Pawney 14 August, Sawa 14 August. “There were 15 actors in Sawa 14 August and every actor had four sets of costumes. The costume designers made extra costumes because each of my play runs for over two months including Sawa 14 August and hence the costumes of the play over the course of two months become worn out, get stained, the costumes need to be repaired and sometimes sent to the laundry. All these elements have to be factored in the overall budget,” said Mr Mahmood.

Elaborating further on props, he said they spent nearly Rs1.5 million on the set that included creating a train, steel panel views and involved a lot of wood and metal work. “This also included paying the carpenters who also constructed wooden doors and stairs as part of the set.” Other costs incurred for Sawa 14 August were lighting and sound. “For a good sound system we had surround sound amplifiers and used theatre spotlights. For both these elements we had sound and lighting designers and all these came down to nearly Rs1.2 to Rs1.4 million.”

When queried about the salaries of actors, Mr Mahmood refused to disclose the salary amounts though he did mention that his company had actors that were employed throughout the year and they each earned a monthly salary.

Auditorium

However, according to Mr Mahmood, it is the rent of the auditorium at the Arts Council that burns a big hole in their pockets and massively increases the overall cost of their production. “If you calculate the rent of the auditorium per day which is Rs45,000 and multiply it by 80 days, the number of days Sawa 14 August ran in the Arts Council, along with four days of rehearsals at the auditorium, one can imagine how costly it becomes for our production company.”

But theatre practitioners such as Asma Mundrawalla and Joshinder Chaggar have found ways to cut down on the costs of their production and charge the viewers much less. “Firstly, the infrastructure for Zambeel Dramatic Readings is not demanding. Then we don’t pay the core group that comprises myself, Mahvish Faruqi and Saife Hasan, the founders of Zambeel. As for marketing our plays we rely mostly on social media that has been fruitful and the number of audience members has been growing. Also we do our storytelling sessions at T2F with whom we have a different kind of an agreement one of which is that we split in half the money earned from the ticket prices,” said Ms Mundrawalla.

Hence, all their dramatic readings such as Taaos Chaman Ki Myna, Manto’s radio plays and many more have been modestly priced at Rs300. She added that they would like to perform at the Arts Council, which has the infrastructure, but because of the high rental cost, they would have to make more than Rs45,000 a day that would be a challenge for the group.

Ms Chaggar, dancer and actor, was assisted greatly by Napa with whom she recently did a co-production titled Conversations II, a contemporary dance performance, priced at Rs600. “I along with Sunil Shankar [director of Court Martial] designed the set ourselves. The performance was held at Napa’s auditorium for which there was no venue cost. Moreover, Napa’s set design person, Javed, did the physical execution of the set and Zain Ahmed [head of Napa repertory] designed our lights.” There were no props in Conversations II and costumes were done creatively and a lot of them were from Sunday Bazaar, she added.

Other costs for the contemporary dance performance included sound and printing. “We had original sound this time. So there was a heavy cost involved for the studio recording. We also hired a sound system to do justice to the music made by Ahsan Bari and Sohaib Lari. But that was worth every penny,” she said. “There are some costs that are unavoidable such as printing that includes brochures, tickets, posters, leaflets, and the banner on top of the exterior wall of the auditorium,” she added. Despite all the help from Napa, Ms Chaggar said that she lost quite a bit of money, the overall production cost of Conversations II was Rs900,000 even though ticket sales were quite good.

This then leads one to ask Sawa 14 August director Mr Mahmood about recovering money from his heavily invested productions. “Yes, we do earn back the money that we invest in our productions. The public does pay the high ticket price to watch our performances and this is because of the content of our plays. The product should be such that it is sellable instead of relying on sponsors. In fact it should be the other way round, sponsors should run after you.”

TV and theatre actor Nimra Bucha disagrees with this assertion, explaining that anywhere in the world theatre costs more than cinema tickets. “But it is only when theatre is state-funded and companies are given grants that prices of tickets can become inexpensive and all theatre companies can make some money that can be reinvested back into theatre.”