More than 40 national and international theatre artistes participated in a six-day theatre festival in Shimla, organised to walk down memory lane of the celebratory 150 years of the 'Queen of the Hills,' crowned thus for its sheer scenic beauty and picturesque locations.
The hill town was named 'Queen of Hills' by British colonial rulers and the town still has around 150 British-era heritage buildings and this celebration mainly aims to recreate the historic past.
"I mean not just the "Queen of Hills," but see in 1864 that Shimla was declared the summer capital of British India and just to commemorate the 150 years, I mean,when all the gamut of development also started taking place, beautiful buildings coming up, I think there are more than 150 heritage buildings which are more than 100 years old. So, the whole idea was, we initiated this idea involving a group of three to four people, we must celebrate it, that is how this whole idea originated and we shared in one of the schools and it further got galloped up,"said organiser and Deputy Mayor, Shimla Municipal Corporation, Tikender Panwar.
The theatre festival is an initiative of the state government and other cultural agencies like the National School of Drama.
A series of other programmes have also been chalked out as part of the celebratory festivities which include mythological ballets, film festivals and display of army bands to showcase the hill town's glorious history and culture.
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Theatre groups from the state are to present the stage plays at the British-era Gaiety Theatre, where Nobel Laureate Rudyard Kipling and legendary actors Prithviraj Kapoor and Balraj Sahni once performed.
The theatre festival is also organised to mark the birth anniversary of world renowed theatre personality from Shimla, Manohar Singh.
The festival started on Thursday evening with the first play titled 'Khalid Ki Khala' by Ramesh Talwar , to be followed with 'Ismat Apa Ke Naam' by veteran actor Naseeruddin Shah, 'Aadamjaad/ Panchlight' of Ranjeet Kapoor , 'Mohepiya' of Waman Kendre and 'Macbeth' of Rattan Thiyam to be performed on the upcoming days.
The local young theatre artistes are thrilled and believe that this would be a great opportunity for them as they will get to see well known plays by renowned theatre directors of the country.
"As a local theatre artiste, I deeply appreciate this kind of festival. We needed a festival like this for a long time. The standard of our theatre in the state will rise when they look at new things, well-made plays. So we thank both the institutions ,National School of Drama and also Language Art And Culture Department Of Himachal Pradesh, for their initiative,"said local theatre artiste, Kedar Thakur.
The authorities here are commemorating this occasion with celebrations across the year.
