STATE TIMES NEWS
Srinagar: The five-day Srinagar Theatre Festival, organised by the National School of Drama (NSD), began here on Monday.
The festival is being organised in collaboration with the J&K Academy of Art, Culture and Languages.
The NSD Repertory Company is performing its play for the first time in Srinagar.
Syed Abid Rasheed Shah, Secretary, J&K Academy of Art, Culture & Languages, was the guest of honour at the inaugural ceremony.
“Laila Majunun”, a play written by Ismail Chunara and directed by veteran Ram Gopal Bajaj, was showcased in the Inaugural ceremony.
Various plays will be staged during the festival, including “Khoob Ladi Mardaani Subhadra Ki Zubani” written by Asif Ali and directed by Bharti Sharma; “Maai Ri Main Ka Se Kahun”, a musical play based on Vijaydan Detha’s story Dhuvidha and directed by Ajay Kumar; “Andha Yug” , written by Dharamvir Bharti and directed by Ram Gopal Bajaj and “Taj Mahal Ka Tender”, written by Ajay Shukla and directed by Chittaranjan Tripathy.
“We have 45 team members from the NSD repertory company. We go to every province of the country to showcase these plays so that we connect with them. The situation in Kashmir has returned to normalcy and people are roaming freely even in the night hours.
“People here are very enthusiastic and there’s brotherhood too. Despite whatever has happened in the past, art never lost its relevance in Kashmir. It was and it will always be alive,” Director NSD, Chittranjan Tripathy, said.
Secretary, J&K Academy of Art, Culture & Languages, said such kind of platforms help provide the opportunities of grooming and mentorship to the youth of the region. “When they are rubbing shoulders with the best of the best directors and actors from the country, under the aegis of NSD, I feel youngsters here get a great opportunity and a great platform and at the same time, the standard of the theatre here is uplifted,” Shah said. He said there is a need to popularise theatre and these art forms. “We will make sure that such events are held on a larger scale and I am very confident that the cultural academy and all our artists’ fraternity will welcome this with open arms,” Shah said.