Lucknow: In the season-three of the five-day ‘Urmil Rang Mahotsav’ starting from July 16 in the memory of the famous writer, theatre director, satirist Urmil Kumar Thapliyal, theatre lovers will get to see five different colours of the state’s folk theatre genre Nautanki.
On this occasion, actors Dr. Anil Rastogi and Vijay Vaastav will be honoured with the Urmil Rang Samman. Along with this, all the actors of the first performance of the Nautanki ‘Harishchandra ki Ladai’ written by Dr. Thapliyal, which took place in 1984, will be honoured on July 16 in this theatre festival being organised by Dr. Urmil Kumar Thapliyal Foundation till July 20 at Sant Gadgeji Maharaj Auditorium, Gomti Nagar.
Regarding this Rang Utsav which starts at 7 pm every day and has free entry, the coordinators Satyendra Mishra and Ritun said that Dr. Thapliyal’s contribution in preserving and presenting Nautanki genre in a new form on radio and stage was unparalleled.
He was a member of various committees of National School of Drama and other reputed theatre training institutes. He received many awards including Sangeet Natak Akademi Samman Delhi, UP Sangeet Natak Akademi Samman, Akademi Ratna Membership, UP Hindi Institute’s awards. ‘Harishchannar Ki Ladai’ written and directed by him is a popular presentation which has been performed more than 150 times across the country.
On the second day of the festival on July 17, artists of Dwarika Loknatya Kala Utthan Samiti Kaushambi will stage the Nautanki ‘Kevat Ke Ram’ under the direction of Santosh Kumar. In the same sequence, Bundelkhand Lok Kala Sansthan of Banda will stage the famous Nautanki creation ‘Raja Bhartrihari’ under the direction of Vijay Bahadur Srivastava on July 18.
On the fourth evening of Rang Utsav on 19th July, Vinod Rastogi Smriti Sansthan Rangmandal, Prayagraj will stage the Nautanki ‘Bantware Ki Aag’ written by Vinod Rastogi and directed by Ajay Mukherjee.
On the last evening on 20th July, Rasrang Foundation, Kanpur will stage the Nautanki ‘Matadin’ under the direction of Neeraj Kushwaha. On this occasion, Dr. Rastogi and Vijay Vastav, who participated in the first performance of ‘Harichannar Ki Ladai’ at Ravindralaya 40 years ago, as well as other artists Rakesh Agnihotri, Devesh Agnihotri, Bhupendra Singh, Rajiv Prabhakar Awasthi, Shivaji Awara Virendra Rastogi, Ashwini Makhan, Shobhana Jagdish, Ritun, Manoj Joshi, Roop Raj Nagar, Tulika Gupta, Kavita Solanki, Vinita Solanki and Madhusudan will also be honored. A souvenir will also be published on the festival.
