Theatre's weeklong festival begins today

Tropa Majumdar, Monir Hossain of HSBC, Abdullah Al Mamun and Ramendu Majumdar at the press conference

At a press conference at the Dhaka Reporters' Unity, Steering Committee Member of Theatre Ramendu Majumdar and Abdullah Al Mamun briefed about the drama festival on November25.

Nagorik Natyasampradaya, Aranyak, Dhaka Theatre, Padatik, Uttaradhikar and Theatre are taking part in the festival. Sponsored by HSBC, the festival starts with Theatre's latest production Mukti and ends with its current production Madhobi. Theatre will honour two drama personalities of the country by conferring Muneir Chowdhury Award and Zakaria Smrity Padak for their outstanding theatrical activities. Acclaimed educationist Sardar Fazlul Karim inaugurates the festival on November 27, at the Experimental Theatre Stage.

Abdullah Al Mamun said, 'Diversity can be found in the scripts of Bangladeshi theatre, although it is not found much in the productions. That is why we have invited diversified productions of contemporary time to make our festival a colourful one.'

Munir Hossain, marketing and public relation manager of HSBC said, 'HSBC patronises cultural activities all over the world. As part of that scheme, we are now patronising Bangladeshi theatre.'

Answering to journalists' question, Tropa Majumdar, who is emerging as a director with the play Mukti, said that because of the crisis of good scripts for the stage she is directing the translated version of an American play.

One-minute silence was observed following the news of poet Tridib Dostidar's death at the end of the press conference.