HYDERABAD: The seventh edition of the Qadir Ali Baig Theatre Festival will begin on November 12. Themed ‘women directors of the sub continent’, the festival is an amalgamation of the finest women directors in the country. Bringing together artistes like Lilette Dubey, Nadira Babbar, Dominique Boivin, Meeta Vashisht, Madeeha Gauhar from Pakistan and Usha Ganguli, the festival is treat of sheer woman imagination and creativity. Also performing at the festival are Neelam Man Singh, Mohan Agashe, Tom Alter, Keerthi Jain, Philippe Priasso and Eric Lamy from France, performing in various languages. Representing local theatre is director Rashmi Seth producing a Telugu play.Founder of the foundation, Mohammad Ali Baig commented, “My mother Razia Baig, also the chairperson for the festival, felt this year should highlight women directors as there is a lot of globally credited theatre bring done by Indian women. Last year’s theme focused on pan Indian theatre.”The festival for which planning began about three months ago is considered as a prestigious annual festival. Encapsulating close to 200 artists over eight venues in 10 days, it gives Hyderabadi’s a taste on national and international theatre acts. Enriching the experience, the festival will also host two workshops on contemporary choreography by Dominique Boivine and ‘Theatre as therapy’, an applied theatre workshop by Dr Mohan Agashe.“We have waiting lists from which the acts are chosen. A committee chooses the plays or the director based on certain criteria. For instance, a play or its director should have already been showcased in three major international festivals and it should be meaningful theatre with a popular appeal,” explained Baig.The venues for the festival are at Chowmohalla Palace, Shilpakala Vedika, the Park, Ravindra Bharathi, Taramati Baradari, Taj Deccan, Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan and ICCR Art Gallery.Tickets to the plays are priced at `1000, `500 and `200 while season tickets admitting entry to all the plays are priced at `3000. Special discounts for educational institutes, students and so on are also available.Interesting however is to note that the Qadir Ali Baig Theatre Festival coincides with the Children’s Theatre Festival this year, an event that occurs every second year. “We usually have our festival during the last week of October and the first of November. However, due to the many religious festivals, we had to push our dates further. But, it’s good for Hyderabad. They shouldn’t be much of a conflict as the audience for both vary. Definitely there will be a small percent of spill-over, but they’ll have to miss good films for good theatre or vice-versa,” Baig commented.
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