Fresh minds take charge as Napa focuses on original plays
Young Directors Festival to go on stage in November with six productions by alumni.
A few productions that took place in the first edition of the festival in 2012. PHOTO: PUBLICITY
KARACHI:
Over the past few years, theatre productions of National Academy of Performing Arts (Napa) have been criticised for being monotonous. Even though they featured a wide range of genres, their cast kept on repeating.
Having become wary of this problem, the faculty of Napa plans to overhaul their approach towards theatre with the Young Directors Festival, by giving young directors a chance to take centre-stage.
This festival would not be the first instance of such an event being organised by the academy. Its first edition was conceived as a platform for alumni to showcase their work but its success enabled it to balloon into something bigger — The International Theatre Festival.
“When Napa was founded [in 2004] the mandate was to provide emerging and amateur artists with a platform to display their craft but after the theatre festival picked up there was no such event for young thespians so we have decided to hold a separate festival for them from now onwards,” Arshad Mehmood, Director Programs at Napa, told The Express Tribune.
Currently in the process of screening through potential applications and plays Zain Ahmed, artistic director of the NRT (Napa Repertory Theatre), said that they had received over a dozen entries but were likely to bring down the number to six plays for at least the 2015 edition of the festival.
Read: 10 years of NAPA through 50 shades of love
Regarding the nature of the plays Ahmed elaborated, “The priority is to stage more original plays and fewer adaptations this time around.”
“Our aim is to provide artistes performing at the festival with complete creative freedom and room for experimentation so that they may fully explore different performing styles,” he added.
Although the festival is a “Napa only” for now, the organisers have already chalked out a strategy to expand it into a creative collaboration very similar to the International Theatre Festival in the near future.
“For now we want to restrict the performances to Napa alumni but hopefully in the coming years we can help branch out this festival by encouraging students from other countries to participate in it,” said Ahmed.
But even if the festival does go on to expand in the same manner, Ahmed reiterated that the core aim of the festival shall remain unchanged, which was to promote the talent of Napa and then other student troupes performing at the event.
With most of the plays scheduled to be performed by Napa graduates, Ahmed explained that the Young Directors Festival would serve a multi-purpose as it would also allow the NRT to select a fresh group of thespians and directors for the troupe.
Read: NAPA calling out to young playwrights
“The oldest alumni applicant performing at the festival graduated only three years ago. So we have new artistes coming through which can become part of the NRT later on,” explained Ahmed.
Having recently winded their performance of Baba Jalinoos- their first production of the 2015-16 spell, the organisers have chosen to stage the event in November after a gap of two months.
“There would be no performances during October as it would be coinciding with Muharram,” elaborated Ahmed.
The International Theatre Festival was held in March earlier this year. The festival was notable for not only featuring diverse plays from USA, India, Germany and England but also for the participation of renowned Indian filmmakers Pooja Bhatt and Mahesh Bhatt, whose film Daddy was adapted for stage in the event.
On the other hand the first Young Director’s festival is considered to be Napa’s best offering to date. It was this festival that featured the very famous provocative play, Eqqus, and the visually enticing Kafka, which was the life of Fraz Kafka.
Published in The Express Tribune, September 23rd, 2015.
Over the past few years, theatre productions of National Academy of Performing Arts (Napa) have been criticised for being monotonous. Even though they featured a wide range of genres, their cast kept on repeating.
Having become wary of this problem, the faculty of Napa plans to overhaul their approach towards theatre with the Young Directors Festival, by giving young directors a chance to take centre-stage.
This festival would not be the first instance of such an event being organised by the academy. Its first edition was conceived as a platform for alumni to showcase their work but its success enabled it to balloon into something bigger — The International Theatre Festival.
“When Napa was founded [in 2004] the mandate was to provide emerging and amateur artists with a platform to display their craft but after the theatre festival picked up there was no such event for young thespians so we have decided to hold a separate festival for them from now onwards,” Arshad Mehmood, Director Programs at Napa, told The Express Tribune.
Currently in the process of screening through potential applications and plays Zain Ahmed, artistic director of the NRT (Napa Repertory Theatre), said that they had received over a dozen entries but were likely to bring down the number to six plays for at least the 2015 edition of the festival.
Read: 10 years of NAPA through 50 shades of love
Regarding the nature of the plays Ahmed elaborated, “The priority is to stage more original plays and fewer adaptations this time around.”
“Our aim is to provide artistes performing at the festival with complete creative freedom and room for experimentation so that they may fully explore different performing styles,” he added.
Although the festival is a “Napa only” for now, the organisers have already chalked out a strategy to expand it into a creative collaboration very similar to the International Theatre Festival in the near future.
“For now we want to restrict the performances to Napa alumni but hopefully in the coming years we can help branch out this festival by encouraging students from other countries to participate in it,” said Ahmed.
But even if the festival does go on to expand in the same manner, Ahmed reiterated that the core aim of the festival shall remain unchanged, which was to promote the talent of Napa and then other student troupes performing at the event.
With most of the plays scheduled to be performed by Napa graduates, Ahmed explained that the Young Directors Festival would serve a multi-purpose as it would also allow the NRT to select a fresh group of thespians and directors for the troupe.
Read: NAPA calling out to young playwrights
“The oldest alumni applicant performing at the festival graduated only three years ago. So we have new artistes coming through which can become part of the NRT later on,” explained Ahmed.
Having recently winded their performance of Baba Jalinoos- their first production of the 2015-16 spell, the organisers have chosen to stage the event in November after a gap of two months.
“There would be no performances during October as it would be coinciding with Muharram,” elaborated Ahmed.
The International Theatre Festival was held in March earlier this year. The festival was notable for not only featuring diverse plays from USA, India, Germany and England but also for the participation of renowned Indian filmmakers Pooja Bhatt and Mahesh Bhatt, whose film Daddy was adapted for stage in the event.
On the other hand the first Young Director’s festival is considered to be Napa’s best offering to date. It was this festival that featured the very famous provocative play, Eqqus, and the visually enticing Kafka, which was the life of Fraz Kafka.
Published in The Express Tribune, September 23rd, 2015.