Theatre festival’s talk discusses various facets of playwriting

Various aspects of writing plays for the theatre were discussed at a talk titled ‘Creative Originality and Inspiration in Writing Drama’ that was held on Saturday during the Pakistan Theatre Festival 2023.

The talk was moderated by playwright Bee Gul and the participants included American theatre artistes Hannah Gaff, Juliana Frick and Nicholette Routhier who earlier performed in a silent play at the festival, and Kanwal Khoosat.

Kanwal has directed a play ‘Both Sit in Silence for a While’ starring Ali Junejo and Rasti Farooq for the theatre festival which also ran on Saturday on its second day. At the talk, she lamented the dearth of institutions for performing arts in the country.

She said only a handful of organisations were working in the country for the promotion of arts and cultural activities.

She also touched on financial issues in the theatrical medium. Theatre was an expensive medium that required lots of money, she said, adding that in order to stage theatre plays, artistes had to look for partners and sponsors.

She said working with limited finances hampered the creative abilities of theatre artistes. She admitted that she had to use her family’s money for her productions.

A day earlier, another workshop was held in which German thespians provided training to young Pakistani actors.

The workshop was titled ‘A Physical Introduction’. German theatre experts Marie Lena Kaiser and Daniel Matheus taught the participants how to express emotions through the body language, including facial expressions and movements, without dialogue.

Meanwhile, speaking with Geo, Arts Coucil of Pakistan President Ahmed Shah said the council would also hold a dance festival in collaboration with Geo.