Opening scene: At King Krishnadevaraya’s court, the little third-standard Tenali Raman walks in wearing a cardboard crown, uses his wit and solves an issue in flat five minutes. Just as the moral of the story is being read on the stage at Mahatma School Baba Building, at another venue inside the campus, fourth-grade girls, dressed up as fairies fly around with paper wings, enacting a fairy tale. Children of various classes came together to present a huge variety of dramas last week, entertaining parents, teachers, guests and judges at the drama festival organised by Mahatma Schools.
Around 105 plays were staged in Tamil and English by the students during the grand finale of the mega drama festival. Conducted for the second consecutive year, the festival saw the enthusiastic participation of over 3,000 students belonging to all the four Mahatma schools and the entire lot of teachers making it a grand success with nearly 300 plays.
The subjects for the plays ranged from Panchatantra tales and Mahabharata to Shakespearean ballads, contemporary musicals and dance-drama. “We were pleasantly surprised to see the creativity of our students. Each one of them came up with brilliant stories and scripts,” says Shanthi Ramoharan, the Vice-Principal of Baba Building campus. She takes the instance of a play on John Pennycuick penned by ninth-grade students. “Only historical facts are available about the famed British engineer. But the students drew inspiration and wrote a whole story based on the facts.”
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Right from the costumes, jewellery, props and stage backdrops and settings, to the script, screenplay, dialogues, choreography and background music, every single work was carried out by the students with the guidance of their teachers. “We all worked hard for nearly a month,” gushes Shanthi. “Every Saturday, the entire school would sit and work for the festival. Some would be making jewellery out of papers; some would be painting the backdrop while others would rehearse the scenes.”
The teachers who helped the students conceptualise and execute the plays, feel that drama is essential to bring out hidden talents in children. They believe theatre skills go a long way in achieving life skills. “Drama develops interpersonal skills and team spirit, refines communication and language fluency and teaches time management,” says Janet, a teacher from the CBSE School. “A number of students have shed their inhibitions and come out of stage fear after participating in the plays. They also get to exhibit their talents in various fields. We discovered many young artists, singers, actors, musicians and orators among our children.”
Taslim, a student of third grade is proud of her piano skills. “I started learning piano last year just to play it in one of the dramas. Now I am seriously pursuing it,” she says. Her classmate Shivani calls herself a good make-up artist. “I love cosmetics and the eye make-up I did for my team received a special mention by the judges,” smiles the little girl. Rohit, a class III student, says that he felt amused playing an owl. “I was dressed in painted paper and I wore an owl-mask. I liked being the bird.”
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The drama festival concluded with a valedictory function where the students were given prizes for their performance.
“We plan to take this forward to establish the festival as the biggest school drama event in the city. We are aiming to enter the Limca book of Records,” says Shanthi.