Theatre for young audiences goes beyond the binaries

Pushing beyond conventions—yet existing adjacent to TYA—is Connections India, now in its third edition. A collaboration between the National Theatre in the UK, where the programme has run for 30 years, and the NCPA, it brings together students from 16 schools to stage as many plays over two intense weekends. Held in January earlier this year, the festival is not just a showcase of youthful enthusiasm, it is a space where theatre is treated as a tool for understanding the world, and a means of bridging divides. “It’s not simply about putting up a play—it’s about the process, the questions that come up, and the way these students start to see theatre differently," said Ragini Singh Khushwaha, who leads creative learning at the NCPA.

Through such showcases, a young audience is now being introduced to a wide range of themes—political upheaval, intergenerational tensions, inclusion—without ever simplifying them. These plays are performed by children from different walks of life alongside adults, making the productions more relatable. For instance, in Luke Barnes’ The Sad Club, featuring children with special needs, director Shivani Vakil Savant focuses on creating a safe, supportive space. “Working within the school setting helped. The kids were incredibly resilient, looking out for each other. I set the same behavioural boundaries as I would for neurotypical kids, and they understood," she says. Metaphors become a bridge to expression—‘I feel like a balloon’ or ‘I feel like popcorn’—perfectly echoing the play’s themes.

Sheena Khalid’s Level Up, a specially commissioned play, follows a young girl navigating grief through a video game, processing loss one level at a time. It does not just settle for the token “strong female lead"—it lets her drive the story on her own terms.

It is unusual for young people to grapple with the implications of old age, but at least two plays have tackled it head on. In Tim Crouch’s Superglue, performers from the Abhyudaya Nagar MPS portray impassioned climate activists gathered at a memorial for a friend lost during a protest. They are soon revealed to be older than they seem, having matured into a world scarred by ecological decline. But there’s a catch. “The script explicitly barred the use of conventional markers of old age—no grey wigs, stooped posture, or aged mannerisms," says director Padma Damodaran. Yet, alongside the ensemble, who deliver credibly stoic performances sans affectation, elderly residents from the JJ Dharamsala Old Age Home appear on stage in identikit costumes as the young actors, not just as a projection of what the characters might look like in actuality, but to serve as a quiet, if fleeting, metaphor that upended the usual narrative of youth fighting for a future they won’t live to see.

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Sudeep Modak takes a different route in his helming of Abi Zakarian’s Age is Revolting for the Kherwadi Municipal School. In the play, school-goers disdainful of the elderly unexpectedly find themselves inhabiting their 80-year-old selves in an old age home. “They were given tasks like spending time with elders, focusing on the mind, body, and voice. They observed physical discomforts, mental shifts like forgetfulness, and the mix of kindness and sternness," says Modak. The young actors certainly sink their teeth into delightfully acerbic types with sheer gusto, but beyond the performance itself, the process becomes an exercise in empathy—allowing them to step into the lives of older people and see them with fresh sensitivity.

Both plays ultimately converged on a shared sensibility—whether through the quiet poignancy of Superglue, where grief intertwined with the passage of time, or the playful irreverence of Age is Revolting, young performers engaged with old age as something tangible, immediate, and deeply human.

There are plays that turn to the past in different ways—grappling with history to make sense of the present. Yasmeen Khan’s Back in the Day, directed by Anitha Santhanam for Govind Nagar MPS, takes a lighter, nostalgic route, with a spirited ensemble revisiting the 1980s through time travel to explore how the past lingers in our lives. “We adapted the play to reflect local history, from Bombay’s textile mills to the teacher-student dynamic in India," says Santhanam, who worked with a culturally-aware bilingual translation by Satchit Puranik that made the steadfast messaging feel more organic. She also pushed her precocious students to engage with a more abstract theatrical language. It took time for them to grasp suggestive and metaphorical elements, but their improvisations became stronger with time. Santhanam was clear that the play was never treated as a ‘children’s play.’ “It felt like a process centred around love—wanting students to expand, experience theatre, and be transformed by it," she said, of her experience with Connections.

Despite the emphasis on collaboration, festivals such as Connections do not exist outside the parallel cultures of privilege and access. While TYA practitioners have long worked to broaden audiences, theatre in India occupies a rarefied space within the arts landscape. This exclusivity is reflected not just in the makeup of audiences but also in those who are drawn to the form itself.

True to its name, the NCPA initiative promises moments of connection, but these do not erase structural divides. The schools participating come from vastly different backgrounds—colloquially called “international" schools and "NGO" schools,—constantly used labels that only reinforce disparities in opportunity. The contrast is visible in confidence, fluency and access to resources, though not in ability or creativity. In this writer’s experience, students from non-profit-funded schools held their own in their plays. The divide is also deeply embedded in language: since most plays are originally written in English, translation becomes both an artistic and political act. Santhanam observed that workshops, in particular, disrupted these divides.

Could this lead to deeper collaborations via inter-school coproductions in the future? “It would be an interesting experiment. We have our assumptions, but we won’t know until we try," says Santhanam. “The challenge would be logistical—schedules, locations, transport—but it could be valuable."

Vikram Phukan is a theatre director and stage commentator.

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