Since 1961, March 27th is being celebrated as a World Theatre Day. Every year a message, is delivered across five continents, by a prominent international theatre personality. This year, it was by Krzysztof Warlikowski from Polland.

During the olden days, in our country there existed Sanskrit theatre. Hundreds of such plays were written, during ancient times. But, when we started getting ruled by outsiders, the theatre took a backseat. However, during the freedom struggle, our very own village theatre came in handy, to deliver the messages of our freedom fighters to the masses. Marathi theatre too did its bit during this period.

Today, Marathi theatre is considered as one of topmost theatres, in the country, as it has always handled social issues strongly; without compromising on entertainment values. Personalities like, Dinanath Mangeshkar, Bal Gandarva, Prabhakar Panshikar, Dr. Shriram Lagoo, Pu La Deshpande, Vikram Gokhale, Satish Dubhashi, Nilu Phule, Ashok Saraf, Dilip Prabhavalkar, among so many others, come to our mind. And, their contribution to marathi theatre, is considered extensively high. Marathi dramas, like Sangeet Manapaman, Ekach Pyala, Ghashiram Kotwal, Ti Phularani, are a few among plenty others, which have entertained marathi theatre viewers.

Today, majority of marathi audience do support Marathi dramas in a big way, in spite of the invasion of television, rising ticket prices etc. Also majority of the artistes are using theatre, as a training ground ; before moving to television serials and films.
On World Theatre Day, let us salute all those great personalities, who contributed to this field.