The Guwahati Theatre Festival has kicked off with the idea to present the best of Indian theatre to the discerning audience here and has gone on to become a much awaited event in Assam's annual cultural calendar, organisers said.
The third edition of the three-day festival began on Friday evening with 'Laughter Therapy', featuring television actor Mona Singh of 'Jassi jaisi koi nahin' fame, and three more plays are scheduled to be staged over the next two days, Festival Chairman Sunit Jain told PTI.
"We began with the passion and idea of facilitating people to witness and be enthralled by a plethora of top-notch stage artists of the country," said Jain.
In the previous editions, noted theatre personalities such as Shabana Azmi, Arundhati Nag, Bhavna Pani, Vinay Pathak, Ranvir Shorey, Rajat Kapoor, Neil Bhoopalam, Saurabh Shukla and Kalki Koechlin took part in the festival.
"The Festival has fired the imagination of the people and given our dear city a certain character," he added.
The festival will feature 'Detective 9-2-11' Saturday and on the concluding day it will have two plays-- 'Foreign Body' and 'Stories in a Song'.
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Directed by Atul Kumar, 'Detective 9-2-11' is a gripping, nerve-wracking but thoroughly exhilarating escape drama featuring Neil Bhoopalam, Sukant Goyel and others.
'Foreign Body', a 100-minute play in English language, is a solo show by Imogen Butler-Cole about hope, healing and forgiveness after sexual assault.
'Stories in a Song' tells stories of musical forms such as kajri, thumri, dadra, khayal, remixes and more and is directed by Sunil Shanbag.
Theatre workshops conducted by Namit Das and Atul Kumar for schools and college students respectively are also a part of the ongoing festival.