The 18th National Theatre Festival CANFEST-2021 was inaugurated at the Jayadev Sadan here on Friday.
The festival will run for six days from March 5 to 10 in collaboration with the Union Ministry of Culture, Department of Culture, Government of Odisha, National Eastern Zonal Cultural Centre, Kolkata, Paradip Port Trust (PPT), IOCL Paradip Refinery, IFFCO Paradip unit. English daily PBD is the media partner of the fest.
The event is being held adhering to social distancing and Covid-19 guidelines.
The festival was declared open by Deputy Chairman, Paradip Port Trust (PPT) Asish Kumar Bose in the presence of senior GM (Finance), IFFCO Suresh Goyal and president, CANMASS Atulya Kumar Mohapatra.
Several troupes from different parts of the State and country are participating in the festival.
On the opening day, Actor’s Repertory Theater (Art) group of New Delhi presented the inaugural Hindi play ‘Nagin Tera Vansh Badhe’. The play was directed by Avtar Sahni. Hindi play ‘Charulata’ was played by Prangan group of Patna, directed by Abhaya Sinha on the second day evening.
Similarly, the Odia play ‘Abhinetri’, ‘Swayambar ‘, Hindi play ‘Nepathya Mein Shakuntala’ , Bengali play ‘Tithineer ‘ will be performed by Dynamic Platform, Bhubaneswar, Sri Sri Jagannath Lalit Kala Mandap, Paradip, Shadow Theatre, Bhopal and Sudrak group of Kolkata on the day of 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th evenings.
The festival is being organised by CANMASS president Capt Atulya Kumar Mohapatra, secretary Sriman Narayan Mishra and coordinated by all members of CANMASS group.