Theatre Personalities of Bihar are popular all across the nation for their medium of language that is different accents of Hindi. Hindi being the national language, the task of communication was comparatively easier for the theatre personalities of Bihar.
Maithili is spoken in most of the north Bihar areas, where theatre of Bihar took its actual form. The theatre personalities of Bihar can boast some of the oldest theatrical traditions in India, dating to the growth of Kirtaniya in the fourteenth century. Hence they form an important association with classical Sanskrit and regional forms. In the medieval period, theatre initiated by the theatre personalities of Bihar spread to Assam and Nepal, producing a huge corpus of Maithili drama. Siddhi Narasinghadeva and Bhupatindra Malla were among the known theatre personalities of Bihar. At the end of the nineteenth century Parsi theatre influenced the theatre personalities of Bihar, leading to the premature burial of Kirtaniya genre.
This created a vacuum in theatrical activities of the theatre personalities of Bihar. However, a new genre was formed by combining Kirtaniya, Parsi, Ramlila, Sanskrit theatre. Colloquial Maithili was used by the theatre personalities of Bihar as the language. Munsi Raghunandan Das, Kamla Choudhary, Lalita Jha, Premlata, Ishanath Jha, Prabodhnarayana Singh, Nachiketa, Sudhansu Sekhar Choudhary, Mahendra Malangia, Arvind Akku Gunanath Jha, Harijee and Ramjatan Mishra are some of the eminent theatre personalities of Bihar.
The theatre personalities of Bihar performed on stages made of bamboo and wooden platforms with curtains, castor-oil lamps for lighting, and a big bright brass disc as reflector. They put on gaudy dresses but simple make-up and the use of Maithili lyrics as fillers were the remarkable features of the early modern phase. The theatre personalities of Bihar still have national prominence for their remarkable works. Rural spectators prefer typical socio-historical or religious drama by the theatre personalities of Bihar. These actors enter from within the audience according to need and musicians sit on the right flank of the stage. Urban theatre in Bihar depends upon auditoriums, its literate viewers preferring psychological plays. Some theatre personalities of Bihar have their groups like Jamghat, Navtarang, Tarjani, and Sankalp-lok that fuses the modern and indigenous forms.
