This work examines the production and performance of theatrical activities aimed at bringing about social change in both development and political intervention in Nepal. Employing a critical perspective and considering theatre as a mode of socio-cultural practice embedded in the wider socio-political reality. This multi-sited ethnography attempts to answer this question by following the works of Aarohan Theatre–performing both theatre for democracy in the context of the 2005-06 popular movement, and forum theatre for development projects. This study explores the challenges of being a professional artist engaged in activism, the pressures felt by Maoist cultural activists and closely analyses how a group of theatre workers who are committed to transforming a stigmatized passion into a respectable and glamorous job in contemporary Nepal.