Development of Manipuri theatre has played a crucial role towards the betterment of the medium. After the colonial rule from 1891 to 1947, the eastern part of India became a constituent part of Indian Union in 1949. A long period of independence under Ningthouja Dynasty since the early Christian era helped expand its cultural and political features. The central trough-like valley holds two-thirds of the population, whose ethnic majority of Meiteis converted to Hinduism in the eighteenth century.

The hills with the thirty odd tribes of Kuki and Naga denominations, were increasingly Christianized since late nineteenth century. However the local beliefs and faiths did survive under the surface, having contributed to Manipuri artistic expression. The Meitei, who formed the nation in fifteenth century, had actually encouraged the enhancement of theatre, while tribal people provided rich textures and dance and music.

Development of Folk Tradition in Manipuri Theatre
The origin of Manipuri performance is actually traced to local primitive fertility-cults and ancestor-worship festivals, the ritual forms perhaps established in the twelfth century. Folk music and dance became very popular and led to collective enhancement with ancestral spirits, ritual control over clan principalities through cyclic festivals, with attached secular lessons for education and initiation of young. There was a huge turmoil in 18th century regarding the massive Hindu conversions that led to division of ideas, thoughts and beliefs.

Setbacks in Development Process of Manipuri Theatre
The devastation that Manipur faced on the hands of Burmese in the later part of 18th century and also subsequent liberation by the Vaishnava ruler Bhagyachandra (1763-98) gave him an opportunity to experiment with change. He effected negotiation between dissenting faiths, manifested theatrically in the peaceful assimilation of both cultures in Manipuri. The soft, lyrical and soft dance patterns healed the annihilating struggle within the self, and in turn became the precursor to a feverish explosion of performance genre conveying the new found love, compassion and synthesis. Many innovative theatre shows and operas also was a part of the theatre performances.

Colonial influence undermined the old theatre after the defeat of Manipur in the Anglo Maniour War in 1891. A new and improved social order was introduced based on British perceptions, with support from existing aristocracy. The British entered along with modern literature and journals, and semi agrarian society was transformed with the incorporation of laissez-faire capital. Proscenium-arch theatre became the aesthetic for new performance, imitating the latest happenings in cosmopolitan Kolkata. While the people of Kolkata looked towards Victorian London for artistic leadership, Imphal looked to the nearest imperial metropolis. The new class took inspiration from historical drama and mythological drama imported through the Bengali language, and the Friends Dramatic Union set up in 1905 found Bengalis and Meiteis uniformly sharing accountability for popularization of the new theatre.

The open pavilion or mandap was a style followed in case of religious theatre of 19th and early 20th century based on Mahabharata and Ramayana, slowly changing into closed fourth wall representation of events with wooden boxes in the front rows to welcome the colonial middle class. The royal presence in a collective theatre as life-giver, protector, and protagonist of rituals now shifted into the role of non-participating patron or individual witness.

Proscenium stages on makeshift outhouses in residential localities increased in number, and new materialism came into effect with ticketed shows introduced at the Manipur Dramatic Union in 1931. The father figure of Manipuri proscenium theatre, Sorokhaibam Lalit, ran the Manipur Dramatic Union as a strict disciplinarian. Two other pioneering troupes, Aryan Theatre (1935) and Rupmahal Theatre (1943), followed suit. The proscenium theatre movement was spread under the leadership of Elangbam Joychandra in rural Manipur, and in neighbouring areas of Assam.

Post Independence Development of Manipuri Theatre
The political integration of Manipur with India in 1949 brought in the Nehruvian ethos, and melodramas on legendary folk love stories and poor-boy-rich-girl encounters attracted the national gaze after 1954. The great quote of "Unity in Diversity" was practically used in theatre. But rapid modernization, new economic rules, and decline in moral and society values guided in modernist, critical social drama from the iconoclastic, prodigious G.C. Tongbra (1913-96) and the humanistic Arambam Somorendra (1935-2000). By the late 1960s, discontent against Indian rule and commercial exploitation by parasitic traders and outside agents led to the rise of youth power, search for identity, and resurgence of the indigenous spirit in artists like M. Biramangol (1908 - 79), as in his anti-Hindu Sanamahi kolu yeikhaiba ("Breaking Sanamahi`s Iron Idol", 1965). In the wake of a separatist ideology, experimental theatre grew in the 1970s under directors like the lyrical minimalist H. Kanhailal in his self-composed masterpiece Pebet {1975).

Some creative brains like Ratan Thiyam initially surpassed local and regional frontiers to seek greener pastures in Delhi and attained meteoric success with colourful productions Chakravyuha, 1984, while conformist commercial theatre posing as reformist continued to pander to non-cerebral tastes.

Government in Development of Manipuri Theatre
Extensive central patronage for cultural productions following the ideologies of assimilation and concentrated growth encouraged a race for added grants and recognition. Lack of introspection into the changed structure of economic, social and political practices led to the advancement of performers, designers, and purveyors who satisfied the voyeuristic aesthetic hunger of the upper and middle classes in Indian metropolises rather than the disturbed masses at home. The artists, who had been nationally and internationally celebrated, lately, became splendid objects of mainstream wonder.

Younger talent who succeeded Kanhailal and Thiyam immediately, faced the ordeal of uncertainty, anguish, and anxieties in their surrounding of disagreement, but did not venture creatively into the real world of violence that marked daily life. The demands from the expectant centre for traditional products of another reality, and the compulsions of the present whose dynamics are beyond their imaginative insights, led them into composing in seclusion patterns of aesthetic imagery, in themselves beautiful, but not conveying authentic experience. Therefore, according to critics, the present theatre generation, lacks the thrust and excitement of the erstwhile leaders. Nevertheless, in this period of crisis and ennui, we find some artists of inner energy and creativity like Lourembam Kishworjit (Paradise Theatre), Nongthombam Premchand (Aryan Theatre), H. Tomba (Kalakshetra), S. Jayanta from the National School of Drama, and Thanilleima as a role model for women entering theatre.