National Theatre Festival For Children Starts Today

Citizens will get to see young actors on stage as part of the ‘Guru Kochunarayana Pillai Multilingual Children’s Theatre Festival’ - a national theatre festival, organised by Rangaprabhath. The festival will be conducted from September 27 to October 1 at Rangaprabhath’s rural community centre at Venjarammoodu, in the outskirts of the capital city.

The festival, commemorating the death anniversary of popular playwright Kochunarayana Pillai, the founder of Rangaprabhath, is also supported by the Union Ministry of Culture.

“The festival is the first of its kind, in India,” says Sashi, a director who works closely with Rangaprabhath. “Through the festival, we aim at comprehensive development of children through theatre,” he added.
Jose Thettayil, the Minister for Transport, will inaugurate the festival today evening at a function, which will be attended by J Arundhathi MLA. ‘Ajikathey’, staged by Koshiga Udupi - a Karnataka based theatre group - will be the opening play for the fest. The five day festival will also have plays by CAMS Hyderabad from Andhra Pradesh and Arangam Nadana Palli from Tamil Nadu.

Rangaprabhath will also showcase its plays in the festival, which will also feature plays by Navarang (Palakkad) and Aruma (Ayiroopara, Trivandrum).

The Additional Chief Secretary K Jayakumar will inaugurate a commemoration ceremony on Kochunarayana Pillai, on the concluding day - October 1. The commemoration speech will be delivered by Prof. V Madhusoodhanan Nair in a function that will be attended by Tamil theatre actor Shanmugharaja and ex-MLA-cum-playwright, Pirappancode Murali.