Karachi Theatre Festival to kick off on July 22

Karachi

The Karachi Theatre Festival, sponsored by the Arts Council, Karachi, will take off on July 22 and end on August 7.

The festival will showcase 18 theatre plays at the Arts Council auditorium.

This was announced by the project director of the festival, Ahmed Shah, at a press Conference at the Arts Council on Thursday evening.

Well-known playwrights whose plays will figure are Zia Mohyuddin, Khalid Ahmed, Zain Ahmed, Imran Aslam, Sheema Kermani, Sunil Shankar and Sajid Hassan. The event will feature noted stage personalities, including Anwar Maqsood, Talatt Hussain, Khalid Anum and  Sajeeruddin.

Zia Mohyuddin will be directing the late Intizar Hussain’s play “Khwabon Ke Musafir” and the final one on August 7 will be “Siachen”, to be directed by Anwar Maqsood. Around 18 plays are lined up to be staged.

Shah said that there would be no tickets for the plays. All one had to do was to come and fetch his/her pass on a first-come-first-served basis by producing his/her CNIC. Te process would begin on July 16.

Shah said that the main aim of the festival was not to rake in money but to promote art and culture and to foster tolerance and intellectual magnanimity in society. 

Karachi, he said, was a bouquet of languages and cultures and these had to be nurtured further.

“Over the last few decades Karachi has degenerated from a city of lights and being the hub of all cultural activity to violence, frightening crime, and sectarianism, gang wars, unemployment and poverty,” he said.

“Theatre discusses themes that take the young people away from violence and destruction.”

Noted TV personality of yesteryear Talat Hussain, tracing the history of theatre in our culture, said our history had been based mostly on storytelling or oral history. Theatre was something relatively new and, given its effectiveness in fostering thoughts and ideas, it must be given all the impetus.

The president of the Karachi Arts Council, Prof Ejaz Farooqui, said that a play well-peformed had a very positive effect on one’s thinking and inculcated noble thoughts and that it must be nurtured.