If everything is non-governmental, the theater will lose its original identity

There are four plays "Mysterious Ring", "Bronze Sparrow", "Blessed and Veiled Lady" and "Untold Stories of Eight Years of Womanhood" in theaters of Tehran, produced by Amir- Hossein Shafiei.

Shafiei said about the big cost of theater production: "Since the mid-2000s, production has become more professional, and now we have reached a point where it is very difficult to stage a work without a producer. However, unfortunately, the number of real producers is not as many as the number of fingers, but there are many fake producers.”

He went on to say: "The theater needs an investor and a executive producer so that the director can only creatively make the work , and the economic issues and the provision of financial resources for the making a creative work are entrusted to the production unit."

Shafiei believes that theater cannot progress without government support and that the government should help theater. If everything is non-governmental, the theater will lose its original identity. We are not going to deviate from the main purpose of the theater because of the box office. Our theater groups should not be forced to settle for any production to secure funding.”

He said that not all theatrical groups need a producer, he continued: "Some producers, which I call fake producers, only provide the budget, while real producers have helped to boost sales and quality of works and give a flow to the theater. They have created something that we desperately need."
Stating that he has never forced a single person to play, this artist added: "Theatre production is completely different from cinema. Theater is the process of birth and creative production of an artist, which is formed by collective work, and for this reason, I have always been in the role of consultant, helper and supporter for the performances. In the theater, there is not so much economic cycle that you are greedy for it.