A week-long theatre extravaganza in Kerala capital

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The city will soon play host to an elaborate theatre fest for children in association with the Ministry of Culture, New Delhi. The seven-day-long National Children’s Theatre Fest, which will be on from Monday, will be conducted by Rangaprabhath Children’s Theatre at Venjarammoodu.  The week-long extravaganza will have artistes of theatre groups from different states across the country. According to K S Geetha, president, Rangaprabhath, nine plays in different languages namely Kannada, Telugu, Hindi, English and Tamil will also be staged on the occasion.

For the theatre village, theatre is a tool which can be useful for developing positive personality traits in children. “At Rangaprabhath, children are exposed to interesting theatre-based activities and games where they will have to develop ideas into stories. From there a premise for a play is arrived at,” said Geetha.
Besides being just an interesting activity, she feels that theatre, especially those dealing with topics relevant to kids, serve as an aid in honing kids’ physical and mental health as well as personality development.

Rangaprabhath, which started in the 1970s with around nine children now has around 100 kids. This time, the theatre village is coming up with new activities as part of the festival. Apart from the different plays to be staged, theatre-based seminars on topics like ‘Theatre and Women’ will also be part of the event.
Two different dramas will also be staged by Rangaprabhath. “While it will be a play titled ‘Poovankozhi Muttayittu’ on the first day, ‘Kunjunniyude Yathrapusthakam’ will be staged before the final day.

 The former is a satirical take on contemporary issues while the latter is based on S R Lal’s Kendra Sahithya Akademi award-winning novel of the same name,” said  Geetha. The nivel won the award for the year 2016.The event is being conducted each year by Rangaprabhath in connection with the annual commemoration of K Kochunarayana Pillai, the founder president of Rangaprabhath. Adding that this year marks the 9th edition of the National Children’s Theatre Festival Geetha said, “During the past years of the fest, we have been receiving a positive response for the initiative, with a big crowd turning up for the festival.”