Royal Talent Fiesta to kick off February 25

Organisers hope the non-profit festival will ‘bring positive change’.

KARACHI: The Royal Rodale Club in collaboration with the Thespianz Theatre is organising the Royal Talent Fiesta on February 25. Children between the age of seven and 20 will give live performances at the arts festival that will comprise acting and singing competitions.

Addressing a press conference, organiser Mrs Asghar Rangoonwala said the event is organised by the club every year to provide young artists an opportunity to expose their talent. “We are starting from a small platform in hope of taking these children to the national level,” she said.

A hundred children are participating in the festival. Some of them have been training for months, she added. Singing is a new addition. Earlier, the festival was restricted to theatre only.

Faisal Malik, the Thespianz artistic director, said the festival is non-commercial. “We want to bring some positive change in society. We want to promote theatre and performing arts by polishing the talent of the youth,” he said.

“We are not interested in making profit.”

Theatre director Sohail Malik will be the chief guest and the judges for theatre acts include Barrister Shahida Jamil, Shaheen Salahuddin, Khalid Anum, Liaquat Soldier, Rahat Najam, Azfar Ahsan and Jawed Yousaf Qamar. The singing competition will be judged by Salman Alvi, Omer Sheikh, VJ Dino and Niaz Ahmed.

The participants will be awarded cash prizes and certificates.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 19^th, 2011.