Upholding its long association with theatre, the financial capital is all set to shine under the spotlight as one of the co-hosts of the 8th Theatre Olympics, world’s largest theatre festival, being held in India for the first time.
The city known for its traditional values and aesthetic sense of performing arts has a rich culture of Marathi and other languages theatre loving population. This makes Mumbai the ideal city to host a variety of folk, national, and international productions.
The Mumbai chapter of the 8th Theatre Olympics is organized by the National School of Drama (NSD) in collaboration with the Directorate of Cultural Affairs, Maharashtra.
During this 51-day long nationwide celebration, the NSD aspires to bridge the borders across the countries through the call of theatre and engage in creating a global village. “Art has been the earliest form of communication and nothing gives an artist more delight than performing in front of an audience that appreciates art, no matter from which part of the world they come. In a way, theatre is a great equalizer and unites people of multiple cultures and traditions under one umbrella,” says Dr. Arjun Deo Charan, Acting Chairman of National School of Drama Society.
The mega event will provide the people of the state to catch a series of 28 stimulating world class performances, including 8 specially invited plays from renowned theatre maestros including “Mohe Piya” (Waman Kendre), “Sonata” (Sohag Sen), “Rashmakirathi” (Ravishankar Khare), “Phera” (Soumitra Chatterjee) and 8 international productions including “Shri 420” (Saba Zaidi and Atul Tiwari, Australia), “Almost Alive” (Sabine Molenaar, Belgium), “Xuan Zang’s Pilgrimage” (Wang Ziangyun, China). Mumbai will also host an international seminar on dwindling popularity of theatre that may be attended by renowned playwrights such as Thomas Stoppard, and popular actors M K Raina, Arundhati Nag, and Dev Shankar Halder.
“For the past 3 years, we had the dream to bring Theatre Olympics to India. The dream that we had seen has come true. We should be proud of our theatre legacy that is more than 2500 years old,” says Prof. Waman Kendre, Director, National School of Drama.
- Mumbai will play host to 28 performances from 24th March to 7th April 2018, presenting a diverse range of theatre forms from all over the world.
- ‘An international seminar on dwindling popularity of theatre is scheduled in the city, ‘Who Shrunk My Theatre?’
- This edition of the global theatre festival will cover 17 cities in India with over 25000 artists performing 450 shows, 600 ambiance performances, and 250 youth shows.
- The festival concludes on April 8, 2018.
The Theatre Olympics was established in Delphi, Greece in 1993. The Theatre Olympics presents some of the greatest theatre practitioners from around the world and it is a platform for theatrical exchange for students and masters, where a dialogue despite ideological, culture and language differences is encouraged. The theme of this edition is “Flag of Friendship”.
