A five-week-long production-oriented State-level theatre workshop is set to kick off here from Sunday. It is being hosted by the city-based 46-year-old well-known theatre organisation Uttara Purusha.
“We have been organising such workshops annually for the past nine years. It aims at grooming theatre enthusiasts as experts in various aspects of theatre,” said Uttara Purusha secretary and theatre director Avinna Routray.
Out of about 100 applicants, 20 including five women have been screened to attend the workshop under direct supervision of workshop director Choudhury Jayaprakash Das, a famed actor-director of Odia cinema and theatre, he added.
Workshop director Das apart, five experts from the field of theatre have been roped in to train the participants in various important aspects of theatre production like stagecraft, light designing, music, voice culture, script writing and physical exercise, Routray explained.
“Our State is very rich in theatre culture. We come across immensely talented and self-taught theatre actors, directors and writers from small towns and villages across Odisha who have not got professional training and exposure in theatre production. Hence, we thought of having this annual workshop at the State capital with low cost and flexible format so that anyone can afford time and money to join it. Usually, the workshop is conducted during the evenings in order to enable working people to join it. The fee for the five-week workshop has been just a thousand rupees,” he said.
The workshop would conclude with staging of eminent Hindi writer Krishan Chander’s popular play Ek Gadheki Atmakatha adapted into Odia by Chandrasekhar Das Burma and directed by Avinna Routray at the Bhanja Kala Mandap on July 26, the hosts informed.