Chandigarh to bask in the glory of 8th Theatre Olympics

Adding a feather to its cap of achievements, Chandigarh is all set to bask in the glory of hosting 8th Theatre Olympics, the world's largest theatre festival, held in India for the first time.

This edition of the global theatre festival will cover 17 cities in India with over 25000 artists performing 450 shows, 600 ambience performances, and 250 youth shows.

The Chandigarh chapter of Theatre Olympics 2018 is being organised by the National School of Drama (NSD) under the aegis of Ministry of Culture, Govt. of India in collaboration with Department of Culture Affair, UT Chandigarh/Chandigarh Sangeet Natak Academy. This was stated by Chairman, Sangeet Natak Academy, Kamal Arora; Suresh Bhardwaj, Festival Convenor, NSD, New Delhi, and Sudesh Sharma, Chief Coordinator, 8th Theatre Olympics Chandigarh Chapter, here today.

"Chandigarh is home to cosmopolitan and folk cultures and therefore offers a perfect backdrop for an international festival like 8th Theatre Olympics," Kamal Arora stated.

"Chandigarh is a city of theatre lovers. We are very happy to have Chandigarh as a co-host of the 8th Theatre Olympics," affirmed Suresh Bhardwaj, Festival Convener, National School of Drama, New Delhi.

"We are very proud to host a chapter of 8th Theatre Olympics in our city. We will make every effort to make this event a grand success", Sudesh Sharma reiterated.

The fortnight-long event in the city, from March 20 to April 3 at Tagore Hall, will stage 15 plays comprising four specially invited plays as well as folk theatre and international plays. Famous productions such as "Macbeth" (Ratan Thiyam), "Mohna Batav"(Navid Inamdhar, Latur), "Indipity" (Pranjal Saikia), and "Hasyachuramari" (Saurabh Anant) will be staged during the theatre festival in Chandigarh. Few allied activities will also take place during this period.

"For the past three years, we had the dream to bring Theatre Olympics to India. The dream that we had seen has come true. Since we began to envision and achieve this feat, Dr Mahesh Sharma and the Ministry of Culture have extended wholehearted support to the idea and have played an instrumental role in making it a reality. Throughout centuries we have seen playwright like Shakespeare and Bertolt Brecht becoming a part of Indian theatre, while despite having our own extraordinary playwrights and theatrical figures, we are still to make a similar impact. This is a huge leap towards that direction of putting Indian theatre on the world map," Prof. Waman Kendre, Director, NSD added.

The festival will culminate on April 8 in Mumbai.