A theatre feast on the cards

In an attempt to encourage the young theatre enthusiasts in the state, Department of Language and Culture, Government of Telangana along with Telangana Rangastala Samithi is organising the ‘Telangana YuvaNatakostavam’ every year at Ravindra Bharathi.

The last two editions of the TYN received an immense response from theatre fraternity. This year the theatre extravaganza is all set to begin from May 25 to 27 at Ravindra Bharathi from 6pm onwards.

The main objective of the TYN is to provide a platform for young theatre artists and to expose their hidden talents to the world. This year, a total of 10 plays will be staged as part of the festival and it is sure that the three-day festival is going to be a great feast for theatre lovers.

Speaking to The Hans India, MamidiHarikrishna, Director, Department of Language and Culture, Government of Telangana, said, “Behalf of the Cultural Department, we are providing a platform to young and talented to explore themselves through these plays. The main aim of the programme is to promote modern experimental theatre art forms,”
“Nearly, 800-1000 members are going to participate in the Telangana Yuva Natakotsvam-3.

There are 10 different plays which are going to be presented in Ravindra Bharathi from May 25. The plays will promote Telangana culture, and this is for sure that all the plays will have different concepts.” Added MamidiHarikrishna.

This year, the festival has two great plays of William Shakespeare’s Drohi and Agatha Christies’ ‘Gunapatam’ which will be staged in Telugu.

Young play writer and director Srikanth Banala said, “This is a great opportunity and good experience for me to participate in this programme. We are going to perform a 50-minute-play ‘PaisalEviBhe’ on May 25 at 8pm”

Answering about why he chose theatre art form Srikanth said, “I had directed some short films and have always been interested in doing live performances and that is the reason whti chose this field. In theatre, we receive immediate feedback from audience and it gives me immense satisfaction,” Srikanth said his team had performed in previous two seasons and now he is eagerly waiting to rock the show once more.

Srikanth Banala’s play ‘PaisalEviBhe’ elaborates people’s negligence on voting and how they choose candidates by taking money and its consequences post elections. It is also a satire on corrupt politicians, who deceive people with false promises.

Harsha Chakilam, another play director and actor said, “I have great interest in theatre right from my childhood. I learned acting as a child by performing roles in various dramas in my school. For me, theatre is a stress buster and I tend to regain my energy after every performance,” Though an engineering graduate and a software employee, Harsha believes that humanity survives only if art forms are alive and it is our responsibility to safeguard our heritage and culture through art.

He added, “In the contemporary society, there is an utmost need of safeguarding our culture, and theatre is one of the best media to do so and to promote our values,”Harsha’s play ‘Adugu’ is a kidnap drama where the audience come across different characters that are victims of various social issues and are now together, kidnapped by a terrorist.

It explores, how they save their lives from the terrorist is the remaining crux of the story.

By Sheker Shivarathri