KARACHI: The National Academy of Performing Arts’ (Napa) young directors’ theatre festival will be held from Jan 13-22, announced the artistic director of the Napa Repertory Theatre Zain Ahmed at a press conference on Monday.

This year’s festival titled ‘Young Directors Theatre and Music Showcase’ was part of the events that began in 2012 in which six plays were staged, said Mr Ahmed. After that an international festival was organised, which was still going on, followed by a young directors’ festival.

This year, Mr Ahmed said, 12 plays would be presented by the young directors — all of them graduated from the academy in the last three to four years, and all of them were first-time directors. The (senior) graduates who had already earned recognition would have to wait. They would get their chance in the international festival. Fortunately, the number of graduates had increased so much that the academy could now afford to pick and choose.

Mr Ahmed said the dramas that were going to be staged at the festival had diversity in terms of topics and languages. There are two Punjabi plays, one Sindhi play, one in the Memoni language and a few Urdu comedy and serious plays, including a couple of Shakespearean dramas. So, there was variety on offer, which was a good thing because each director intended to challenge themselves.

Mr Ahmed said this time round another new thing was that two venues were being used for the event. Recently, the basement of the academy was renovated and a performance area was created there. Four plays would be put up in the basement while the rest would be staged in the auditorium.

Mr Ahmed said two days were kept for music — Jan 21 and 22. On the first day young musicians would present classical music, while the second day was marked for contemporary music.

Earlier, while addressing the media, Napa’s programme director Arshad Mahmud said it had been more than 10 years since the academy came into existence. The more the work of the younger lot came to the fore, the more they got encouraged that there was plenty of talent in Pakistan. The performing arts needed continuous practice, which was why Napa constantly engaged the young artists. It was also important that we should see the works of the Rahat Kazmis and Talat Husains in the making.

Mr Mahmud appealed though the media that people should come and watch the plays.

The first play that’s going to be put up is the Urdu adaptation of Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra. The Urdu version of Hamlet will be staged on Jan 20.

Published in Dawn January 10th, 2017