KARACHI: The Young Performers Theatre and Music festival by the National Academy of Performing Arts is geared to promote young and budding talent. A first of its kind initiative, the ten-day affair features mostly debutant directors presenting 12 different plays in front of a wider audience with venue and facilities provided by the Academy. A reasonably diverse line up with productions ranging from serious to comic the series includes adaptations of foreign plays in Urdu as well as a few original scripts.
The young director’s event opened with Urdu adaptation of Shakespeare’s masterpiece ‘Antony and Cleopatra’ by Vijdaan Shah who is a recent NAPA graduate. The budding thespian talking about his directorial debut on stage with the historical tragedy describes it as a challenge and huge undertaking due to its five act structure. A complex story of love, war, defeat, betrayal and politics the 17th century play is still very relevant says Shah.
In keeping with the tradition of promoting new talent the series is another effort to keep theatre growing according to NAPA’s Artistic Director Zain Ahmed. A platform for aspiring artists to showcase their work the ten-day festival also marks the opening of their newly renovated basement auditorium says Ahmed. Out of the 10 days, the last two will be dedicated to musical performances, concludes Ahmed who is also the festival director.
Titled Young Performers Theatre and Music Series, the event starting from January 13 will continue till 22nd.
No comments: