The press conference of the 18th Traditional/Ritual Theater Festival was attended by Davoud Fathalibeigi, secretary of the festival, Mohammad Hossein Naserbakht, deputy secretary of the festival, Payman Shariati, director of the City Theater Complex, Kayvan Nakhaei, public relations director of the Dramatic Arts Center and Arasb Ahmadian, managing director of Mahak Institute at Mashahir Hall of the City Theater Complex on Saturday.

Davoud Fathalibeigi, veteran theater figure and secretary of the festival, began the conference by saying that artists of ritual and traditional theater had faced many problems in early years of the festival, which had started with 12 groups in its first edition when certain individuals were proud of shutting down Ta'zieh in a city, Iran Theater reported.

"I have reminded these to inform the next generation of what bumpy road the festival had left behind to reach the upcoming edition in which 550 groups submitted works," the secretary said.  

Mr Fathalibeigi regretted that the Ministry of Science and Higher Education had no academic field for the traditional ritual theater in universities.  

Mohammad Hossein Naserbakht, deputy secretary of the festival, said that the sixth international seminar of the festival would be held on August 30-31.

The main theme of the articles were about Ta'zieh and Naghali, he said, stressing that studies on less-known traditional and ritual theater would be welcomed by the festival.

Mr Naserbakht said that 40 articles were admitted in the seminar of which 29 would be delivered as speeches and nine in posters.

He added that 11 foreign guests from Portugal, Bulgaria, Malaysia, the Netherlands, Ethiopia, Azerbaijan Republic, Armenia, France, Canada, Belgium and England were invited to the festival.  

Mehdi Hajian, director of provinces of Dramatic Arts Center, said that 179 plays would be present in the festival of which 168 were from Iran and 11 research works were from other countries.

He said that 20 women directors would take part in the festival, adding that plays from the country's 22 provinces would participate.

Meanwhile, Arasb Ahmadian, managing director of Mahak Charity Institute, said that the institute would be proud that it was hosting the opening ceremony of the festival for the second successive year