The five-day theatre festival will be held at iconic venues of Salar Jung Museum and Taramati Baradari.

Hyderabad: The 18th edition of the prestigious Qadir Ali Baig Theatre Festival is beginning here on October 5.

The five-day theatre festival will be held at iconic venues of Salar Jung Museum and Taramati Baradari.

This year’s plays feature writing by Ismat Chughtai, German playwright Sibylle Berg and others and themes such as human relationships, the history of dissent, a chapter from the Ramayana, greed and the love for acting.

Artistes who will be seen in action include Anjan Srivastav, Masood Akhtar, Mita Vashisht, Sunil Shanbag, Ayesha Raza, Anubha Fatehpuria, Dr. Dalavai Kullayappa and more from Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata and Anantapur.

According to the organisers, genres are diverse, spanning traditional puppet theatre, adaptations, biography, poetry, dance and satire. The festival will also feature free master classes by Mohammad Ali Baig, Anjan Srivastav and Sunil Shanbag on topics such as theatre management, the Indian method of acting and how life informs art.

The festival is curated by Padma Shri recipient Mohammad Ali Baig as a tribute to his legendary father, theatre doyen Qadir Ali Baig.

The Festival is being presented in association with Telangana Tourism, Salar Jung Museum, Goethe-Zentrum Hyderabad and is headlined by the Aparna Group.

According to Mohammad Ali Baig, over the past 18 years, Hyderabad’s Qadir Ali Baig Theatre Festival which has hosted the virtual who’s who of Indian and global theatre has come to be regarded as one of the foremost theatre assemblies in the subcontinent, at the same time giving an impetus tonew work from upcoming young artistes of different cities.

From classical to contemporary theatre, physical and dance theatre, puppet and circus theatre, bio-plays to solo performances, mythological and avant-garde, intimate and spectacle, musicals and storytelling, historical pageants to social dramas, the festival repertoire has presented a wide bouquet to theatre aficionados of the south.

While thespians like Habib Tanvir, Usha Ganguli, Tom Alter, Surekha Sikri and Jalabala Vaidya had their last stage appearances at this national assembly, Alyque Padamsee, Pankaj Kapur and Kulbhushan Kharbanda made their comebacks to theatre on this stage.

Leading actors like Naseeruddin Shah, Shabana Azmi and Anupam Kher have paid annual tributes to Qadir Ali Baig.