Nataka Karnataka Rangayana, the theatre repertory, will be organising nine-day B.V. Karanth Navaratri Rangotsava from September 19 as part of Dasara celebrations.
There will also be an exhibition of traditional dolls, line drawings by Kuppachar and paintings of personalities who have served the cause of professional theatre, on the occasion.
Three children’s dramas will also be staged during the festival. Director of Rangayana B. Jayashree told presspersons here that troupes from the children’s theatre repertory of the Dharwad unit of the Rangayana, Deena Bandhu Makkala Mane of Chamarajanagar and Natana Drama School would be staging plays during the festival.
Senior theatre artistes would be felicitated during the festival, she added.
Minister for Agricultural Marketing Shivaraj Tangadagi will inaugurate the festival on September 19. Chandrashekhara Kambara, noted playwright, would be the chief guest and he would felicitate senior theatre artiste G.V. Sharada, she said. Checkmate, a production of Rangayana, directed by Anup Joshi of Bhopal, will be staged on the occasion.
On September 20, a troupe from Vidyavardhaka College will stage Prasanna’s Kondavararu, directed by S. Ramanath, and Mr. Kuppachar will be felicitated.
Students of Koutilya Vidyalaya will stage Dr. Kambara’s Alibaba Mattu Nalavattu Mandi Kallaru, directed by Saroja Hegde, on September 21. Sudhamani, an artiste from Chitradurga, will be felicitated on the occasion.
On September 22, students of JSS Mahila College will stage Nanda Halemane’s Tranku, directed by Nandini K.R., and Kashi Rao Patil, a freedom fighter from Raichur, will be felicitated.
Children from the Deena Bandhu Makkala Mane will stage Dundiraj’s Ajji Kathe, directed by Ramu, on September 23, and Chennamma, a progressive organic farmer from Bangalore Rural district, will be felicitated by noted social scientist Muzaffar Assadi.
On September 24, students of Chamarajendra Academy of Visual Arts (CAVA) will stage The Bourgeois Gentleman, an adaptation of Jean-Baptiste Poquelin’s Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme by A.N. Murthy Rao, directed by ‘Mime’ Ramesh, and Hajabba, a well-known social reformer from Mangalore, will be felicitated.
Children from Natana school will stage Vaidehi’s Satru Andre Satraa, directed by noted film and theatre personality Mandya Ramesh, on September 25, and Riaz Ahmad will be felicitated for his social service.
On September 26, students of Vijaya Vitthala College will stage Tabarana Kathe, an adaptation of Poornachandra Tejaswi’s novel by R. Nagesh, directed by M.C. Krishna Prasad, on September 26, and Irsing of Dharwad will be felicitated.
On September 27, children from Dharwad’s Rangayana unit will stage H.S. Venkatesh Murthy’s Alilu Ramayana, directed by Hulgappa Kattimani, and yoga expert H.B. Ramesh from Hassan will be felicitated on the occasion.
The exhibitions will be open for the public from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. and from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. on all the nine days. The plays will be staged twice a day — at 3 p.m. and 6.30 p.m. Those interested may collect passes from the Rangayana office.
