Theatre is set to receive an unprecedented push into the limelight as India prepares to host the 8th edition of Theatre Olympics (TO), considered the world's biggest carnival for thespians. To be inaugurated at the Red Fort on February 17 with much fanfare, the 51-day festival will be spread across 15 cities and features 450 shows and 600 "ambience" performances by theatre practitioners from around the world. A TO press conference, held on Tuesday at the National School of Drama, saw the attendance of the Union Minister of State for Culture Mahesh Sharma, along with Arjun Deo Charan, acting chairman, NSD Society and Waman Kendre, director, NSD.
Packed to the gills, the conference was indicative of the level of interest and buzz the festival will generate in the coming days. Fully backed by the Ministry of Culture with an investment of Rs 51.40 crore, the international theatre extravaganza is themed "Flag of Friendship" and will feature participants from 30 countries putting 65 big-ticket global productions. Indian theatre maestros like Ratan Thiyam, Alyque Padamsee, and Rudraprasad Sengupta will also be part of the much-anticipated event.
People walk past the Theatre Olympics graffiti at NSD, New Delhi | Sanjay Ahlawat
The scale of the festival is indeed staggering and necessarily so. Set up in 1993 in Delphi, Greece, by the noted Greek theatre director, Theodoros Terzopoulos, TO has acquired the status of a prestige event where the host country gets to showcase the best of world theatre and channel a wide spectrum of philosophies and ideologies. TO is exactly what it sounds like, an Olympics for an artform going back to 384 BCE, established in the country where theatre originated. The first ever Theatre Olympics was held in 1995 in Greece, followed by Japan, Russia, Turkey, South Korea, China and Poland. Hence, the festival is a fabulous opportunity to unfurl the at least 5,000 year-old multifarious theatrical tradition of India. "We have been dreaming of hosting this event for around three years now. And it is finally happening. The whole world knows personalities like Shakespeare, Henrik Ibsen, Bertolt Brecht. This is our chance to project our rich tradition of theatre on the world stage," said Kendre at the press conference.
But for all the grandstanding and the push being given to make this event a success, no new auditoriums have been built for the performing troupes. Plays lined up in Delhi will be shown in existing auditoriums like Sri Ram Centre, LTG, Kamani, and the NSD campus. The 450 shows chosen for the festival went through a two-tier screening process which had entries from 1,250 groups, including 100 international ones.