For many years, theatre in Kenya has been purely a lover's pursuit by those within and outside the industry. Production houses and actors have had a hard time earning a living from this highly-gruelling and demanding craft, that takes many hours of practice for any particular production to go off flawlessly, over the years. During a discussion on the state of theatre in the nation dubbed "Intergenerational Conversation on Theatre in Kenya" organised by Twaweza Communications and Creative Economy Working Group, the old guards of theatre, the current crop and everyone in between met at the University of Nairobi's University Tower. In a session called "Contextualisation of The Dialogue", a lot was said about how theatre grew from youth groups in the neighbourhoods of Nairobi's Eastlands and were helped on in the commercial phase, through those who had enjoyed or been in theatre through their younger years and landed themselves in positions of influence in the corporate world. Many actors also had day jobs and would carry out their acting passions after work. They would form associations that went on to source and fund the theatre spaces that had been developed and then left behind by the former colonial powers. The session was facilitated by storytelling artiste Mueni Lundi and also had Dr Edwin Nyutho (University of Nairobi), Dr Mshai Mwangola (The Orature Collective), Abubakar Zein (consultant), Sandra Chadota and Brian Ngartia (both representing Too Early For Birds franchise). Ngartia and Chadota gave the perspective of the current fate of the industry. "When I went to study theatre at the KCA University, most people were telling me to choose film instead of theatre. "That's where the money is," they would tell me. And it wasn't until I got into crew work that I started to see the truth in that. Also, where before it used to be cool and theatre would be publicised in media, with photos and articles running up, we're really struggling with getting the word out now." She added that due to that, the industry has seen a lot of artistes coming to support their fellow artistes' works and so it seems like the money is just circulating within their circles. Mr Ngartia said the more things change, the more things stay the same He had a huge fight with his parents when he chose to pursue theatre at Kenyatta University. "They said, "Na usiwahi kuja kutuomba pesa! (Don't ever come back to us begging for money in future). They don't say that anymore, but it stuck with me for the longest time," said Mr Ngartia. When putting together his first "Too Early For Birds" production, he used money he had set aside for buying furniture at his new apartment to help pay for costs. But it eventually paid off, and his crowd. Read: Ngartia Kimathi: Award-winning poet transforms word to musical theatre "Theatre is the kind of endeavour where you jump out of a plane, and you build the parachute going down. I'm glad we could go into institutions to get training and then apply it when you get out," he added. "Too Early For Birds" is a mix of spoken word and storytelling. Mr Ngartia got into it when it was transitioning from being held as open mics in churches and bars and artistes would do concert shows of 90 minutes to two hours of a single artiste doing pieces that were connected. Or sometimes a group of artistes. But the main key thing was that they were independent; they were sponsored either from the artistes' pockets or the artistes would source funding from others. He and Abu Sense decided to quit their jobs to pursue this dream. Their first show was attended by friends and family who didn't want them to be homeless. But after seeing their works, the same audience is the one that recommended them to others, and in the last show they had more than 4,500 fans coming to their last staging "Too Early For Birds: Tom Mboya Edition", generating a revenue of Sh8 million. There have also been institutions like Heva Fund, Africa's first investment, advisory, and knowledge solutions hub for the creative industries, who have come in to give a huge boost. The revolving funds have helped many in fashion, music, theatre, and other forms of arts to scale up and increase revenue made from their craft. Dr Mwangola said it is also important to consider that while other people would want to go to the theatre to be entertained and switch their minds off to enjoy a play, others choose to take up more serious topics, at the end of the day the audiences have to be able to relate to the stories for them to feel the need to leave their screens at home or the bar and step into the auditoriums. Other participants talked about exploring other spaces for theatre. There was mention of a theatre group that was able to hold shows in different bars for weeks many years back, through collaborations, which enabled it to earn consistently. Also, the importance of having programmes that can be sold at the entrance, talking about the play, and giving the actors profiles
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