Campus ready to act

Young talent will exhibit its mettle at this theatre festival which will starts off in the city next week. The Atelier Campus Theatre (ACT’12), currently in its sixth year, has 34 college teams performing across 10 venues.

Young talent will exhibit its mettle at this theatre festival which will starts off in the city next week. The Atelier Campus Theatre (ACT’12), currently in its sixth year, has 34 college teams performing across 10 venues. With an aim to organise and strengthen the campus theatre movement, the festival is spread over 16 days with many new elements this year.

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“The festival aims to remove the elitist tag from theatre and make it accessible to all colleges of Delhi University,” says Kuljeet Singh, festival director. “When we started five years ago, there were only a few colleges like St. Stephen’s, Lady Shri Ram and Kirori Mal who were regular in the theatre circuit.

Now there are more than 25,” he adds. Apart from DU, students from other cities like Kolkata, Jaipur and Ahmedabad are also participating this year. “The festival begins with a performance of Manto Rang by students of Ankur, the theatre society at SGTB Khalsa College to celebrate the 100th birth anniversary of Punjabi and Urdu writer Saadat Hasan Manto. “Manto’s stories are relevant across genres and age-groups. Apart from the popular Toba Tek Singh and Thanda Ghosht we are also exploring lesser known stories like Ishq par zor nahi and Nangi Awazein,” Ayushaansh Gupta, President, Ankur. A collection of eight short stories, the themes range from a hilarious satire set during partition, tragedy and romance.