Star Cast

organising committee.

The festival has been organised by the Chandigarh Administration in collaboration with Pearls Institute of Hospitality and Management. There are other sponsors as well,according to Samwartak Singh,director Social Welfare,and sponsors are increasingly expressing their eagerness to be a part of the theatre scene in the city. The first day will see Pierrot’s Troupe’s Ghalib,scripted and directed by Dr M Sayeed Alam and starring Tom Alter,Vijay Gupta and Anju Chabbra. The play is a chronicle of the life of Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib,the poet par excellence. Seventy-year-old Ghalib (Alter) narrates his memoirs to his first biographer Maulana Altaf Hussein Hali. In his inimitable style,laced with humour and satire,he talks about Ghalib the talented child; Ghalib the carefree young man; Ghalib the mature middle aged householder,his wife Umrao Begum,his deranged brother,his lady love Mughol Jan,his futile attempts to secure a dignified position in the Mughal Darbar and the professorship in Delhi College. In the process,he dispels myths about his rivalry with Zauq,about his love for wine and women and about his role in 1857. At the core of the play are Ghalib’s ghazals including many unheard ones. Pierrot’s Troupe is credited with re-discovering the genre of ‘biographical drama’ — plays based on the lives of eminent personalities like Maulana Azad,KL Saigal,Begum Akhtar and Ghalib.

On July 25,Shekhar Sen will present Goswami Tulsidas. A ‘mono act musical play’ written and directed by Sen,Tulsidas is the story of how an orphan beggar boy becomes the greatest poet of the country and eminent social reformer. The 120-minute drama has 50 musical sequences as they merge with the story and viewers get a panoramic view of Goswami’s literary works. Sakubai,written and directed by Nadira Zaheer Babbar will be performed by Sarita Joshi,with the plot revolving around the trying circumstances of life.

Broken Images,starring Shabana Azmi,written by Girish Karnad and directed by Alyque Padamsee,is a psychological thriller that rips the mask off a celebrity. It is teh story of Manjula Sharma,an unsuccessful Hindi short-story writer who suddenly becomes wealthy and famous by writing a best-seller in English. The question haunting Manjula is,whether in opting for the global audience,has she betrayed her own language and identity? It is her own “image” that decides to play confessor,psychologist and inquisitor.

The festival will be on from July 24 to July 27. The performances will be held from 6.30 pm at Tagore Theatre and the festival is open to all. Passes can be collected from Tagore Theatre on a first-cum-first-serve basis.