Syed Jamil Ahmed
Professional theatre began in Dhaka around the 80s, but when movies started getting popular, people stopped coming to theatres. This impacted the theatre industry, and soon, theatre companies were not earning enough to give proper amounts of money to their actors. So, these companies started to rely on people that volunteered to act. However, with people having to face more needs of earning more, less people are volunteering for theatre. The ones who used to act in theatre are facing other commitments, while the newcomers are deciding to pursue other careers which provide better pay. In the last three plays I did, I did not take any pay for directing it, and on some plays, Mohsina or Rana did not even take pay for their roles as the dramatiser and assistant director. But, for the actors, we still provided them with as much as we could when it came to a fee. This was also the case for