In kids’ theatre fest, a peek at life in all its variety

GURUGRAM: There are enough folks working unobtrusively and devotedly to help keep the flame of theatre burning. Proof of that is the Gurugram Kids Theatre Fest, the city’s only drama festival dedicated to children, which returns for its second edition on April 28.
To be hosted by American Excelsior School, the fest features six plays, each not more than 25 minutes long. Organisers Magic Creations, a city-based academy of performing arts, will be staging three productions — ‘Julius Caesar (Revisited)’, ‘Eidgaah’ and ‘Pihu Aur Uske Dost’ — and there will be a play each from ‘ShowSha Baaz Caravan VOW’ (‘The One Day Paradox’), NeoFusion (‘Mere Khwaab, Mera Haq’) and Shiv Nadar School, Gurugram (‘The Little Red Riding Hood and Many Clowns’).

Karan Arora, 30, was all of seven when he debuted on stage. Over the last four years, his group — the quite-a-mouthful ‘ShowSha Baaz Caravan VOW’ — has been busy engaging girls and boys with the delights of drama. “I’ve lost count of the number of kids who have come and gone. Some make their own videos, which they edit and put on YouTube. They’ll send a link, and ask me, ‘Tell us how the acting is, tell us how the editing is’,” a proud Arora told TOI.

‘One Day Paradox’, which wraps up in the 13th minute, is a murder mystery. “This time, we’re working with teenagers — they’re 14, 15 years, all going through hormonal changes in their bodies. They did not want to do something typically child-oriented and happy-ending, so they asked me if I could write a murder mystery. ‘I said, okay — that’s interesting!’”

Meanwhile, ‘Mere Khwaab, Mera Haq’ focuses on the scourge of child labour in a dance-drama that revolves around a growing boy whose father is an abusive alcoholic. Despite his straitened circumstances, the lad doesn’t stop dreaming, but all the money he saves up for his dreams ends up going towards the treatment of his father (who succumbs to his illness).

“Kids should not get disheartened from seeing the play — I want them to learn from it,” says Anubhooti Agrawal, founder and director at NeoFusion Creative Foundation, which strives to empower underprivileged kids. Incidentally, the play’s leading man also had an alcoholic father who dies. He rose above the tragedy, just as his character does.