Film and theater personality Naseeruddin Shah greeting theater personality Anuradha Kapoor at the inauguration ceremony of the International Festival of Theater Schools, in Thrissur on Wednesday. , photo credit: KK Najeeb
Eminent theater and film personality Naseeruddin Shah has said that in the era of growing intolerance, people in theater need to disagree constructively.
Speaking after inaugurating the first edition of the five-day International Festival of Theater Schools at the School of Drama and Fine Arts here on Wednesday, he said he is basically a theater person and theater is something he really wanted to do. feel the urge. It is more precious than my first love, he said.
“The growing hostility and intolerance in society should never deter us. Theater should arm itself with creative strategies in the most adverse of times. It could be miming, storytelling, puppetry or poetry reading. Forget about the process and the big venues. Communicating the ideas is what’s most important.”
“I consider theater to be the closest possible contact with a stranger. Theater can exercise more creative freedom than cinema.”
“I am optimistic about the future of theatre,” he said. People are coming back to theatres. We see hungry audiences everywhere. Theater is alive in many forms. So many youth are actively involved in writing, directing and acting in theatre. They feel the need to say something new, to raise questions.
“Even in the 1970s, when I started my theater career, the theater fraternity feared whether theater was dying. 53 years have passed. But the theater is still alive and active and showing no signs of decline,” he said.
“When you leave school, the learning process is about to begin. The passion for theater will make you better. The future of theater lies within you. Don’t wait for the perfect opportunity. It never happens,” he told the theatre. Told the students.
IFTS has been conceived as an annual event in connection with the International Theater Festival of Kerala. The objective of the program is to provide a platform for sharing different perspectives on Theater Pedagogy across the globe.
The function was organized by the School of Drama and Fine Arts; Kerala Kalamandalam; Sri Shankaracharya Sanskrit University; Sanskrit University Kalady; Kerala Sangeetha Nataka Akademi and Shergill Sundaram Arts Foundation.
MV Narayanan, Vice-Chancellor, Sri Shankaracharya Sanskrit University, Kalady and Kerala Kalamandalam Deemed University; M. Naseer, Pro-Vice Chancellor, University of Calicut; B Ananthakrishnan and Anuradha Kapoor, eminent theater personalities and curators of ITFOK and Sreejith Ramanan, Head of the Department, School of Drama and Fine Arts attended the inaugural function.