Theatre personalities Shiva Pathak, Nimi Ravindran and Anuradha H.R. conceived it, Ajay Krishnan coined the catchy title and the who's who of Bangalore's theatre fraternity are now geared to be a part of it. “The Great Galata” that will be performed today to celebrate World Theatre Day is creating ripples of excitement in the city for its unique concept.
“The Great Galata” is a start-to-finish theatre event that began at 4 p.m. on March 24 and will end at 9.45 p.m. on March 27. The aim of the festival is to create ten short plays in Kannada, Hindi and English in three days. Besides bringing together the best names of Bangalore theatre, “The Great Galata” includes representatives from Chennai, and a director and dramaturge from Germany, who has strong connections with the city.
Shiva Pathak, one of the organisers, spoke of how it all began, over the phone. “Nimi Ravindran and I had this idea for quite sometime. We thought World Theatre Day would be perfect to incorporate this concept. We wanted to get as many people as possible into this magnum opus, so to speak. This is not a competition. It gives creative freedom to the playwrights, directors and actors.”
The festival had some terms and conditions, to which the participants agreed. First, new plays with a common idea had to be written within a day. Then, the directors had to put together a play from the script within a day.
The plays, actors and rehearsal spaces were allotted to the directors by drawing lots. The real challenge was that no one knew who their teammates were until the lots were drawn.
Shiva says that it is not the end product, but the process that matters. “The focus of the festival is not to create the best work but to see how innovative we can be. It is an experiment that celebrates theatre. We can't really say what the outcome will be. We just hope to be one happy family.
Presented by Just Theatre, “The Great Galata” team is working hard to make the event a cracker.
The production managers are Anil Ramachandra and Bharavi with Rebecca Spurgeon, Ranjini Murali, Adit Abraham and Jacob as assistant production managers. Vinod Ravindran and Ashiqa Salvan are in charge of photography.
Documentation has been done by Ashiqa Salvan while design in charge is Arjuna Shankar.
“The Great Galata” will be performed on March 27 at 7.30 p.m. at Ranga Shankara. Tickets priced at Rs. 200 are available at www.indianstage.in, www.bookmyshow.com, and at the venue, Ranga Shankara.
