Boardroom turns into stage for budding managers

Mou Chakraborty
Kolkata, September 18
What has management got to do with theatre? Well if the students of Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta (IIMC) is to be believed, theatre would help them to become better managers!
The IIMC organised a drama workshop “A Journey into Theatre” by Nandikar between September 15 and 17. Stalwarts like Rudraprasad Sengupta, Goutam Halder, Debshanker Halder and Swatilekha Sengupta conducted the workshop. About 45 first year students participated.
Explaining how the workshop would help students, Shipra Sinha, president of the IIMC dramatics cell, said, “Management is about understanding people, getting into their heads, and then empathising with them. Management is a lot about theatre. While you are acting you become some one else. The workshop has helped us to understand others. Theatre also helps us to improve our presentation skill.”
The workshop began with a dance sequence choreographed by Goutam Halder. The sequence was an assembly of over twenty 15 second routines assembled to form a medley. Singing and acting classes followed this routine. The students felt that the workshop would help them to become a team person. “Dance sequence needs team work and cooperation. We were divided into groups and moved as one unit. We realised how to teamwork functions and what happens if a group of people work together to achieve a goal,” said Sinha.
Theatre is also about being bold or even fearless at times. Rudraprasad told students, “Theatre is life.” With subjects such as organisational behaviour in their course, students who took part in the workshop felt the workshop would be useful for them.
“The pauses between sentences that one performs on stage, is like a conversation at the workplace. Communication, that is so vital to employees as a whole, is the fulcrum around which theatre revolves. Communication here is not restricted to the spoken word only. It is about that stare the actor gives his fellow artiste, which one often could get from the boss. It is all about articulating oneself to perfection, which would define organisational communication to a tee,” said Sinha.
The theatre workshop also helped students to boost their public speaking skills. “From this workshop we have learnt that a good actor gets into the skin of the character. In the same way when one has to address a large audience you will have to speak with conviction,” said Sinha. Raman Thakral, a student who had difficulty in communicating said, “The workshop helped me understand myself.”
For many students present at the workshop singing and dancing was a first. In the words of Sunil Natraj, a first year student, “I have never sung in the bathroom, let alone on stage. And dance is taboo for me. Yet when I did this, I felt terrific.”
Mou.Chakraborty@hindustantimes.com