KALYANI NATYACHARCHA KENDRA

Kalyani Natyacharcha Kendra has been formally constituted in 1996 and later it has become a full-fledged Theatre Organization in 1997. Since its inception it has been absolutely engaged in promoting theatre appreciation in and around Kalyani-a University city some 48 kms away from Kolkata. The organization beleives that GOOD THEATRE IS ESSENTIAL FOR GOOD LIVING. Initially it has organized 6 annual Multilingual theatre festivals in the month of November and December till 2001 in collaboration with EZCC and NANDIKAR-a Kolkata based Theatre Group. From 2002 onwards the organization has been holding a 10 day theatre festival from 17 to 26 December every year in Ritwik Sadan- a well equipped theatre auditorium in Kalyani having 994 seats. The 15th theatre festival has taken place during 17 to 26 December 2009. In the festivals- each year- a number of 15 renowned Theatre Groups from Kolkata and Districts participate.This Non-Kolkata based Theatre Festival is only of its kind in West Bengal-where not a single ticket is PUSH-SOLD. And it is also a pride to mention that almost all the shows become HOUSEFULL in this festival. That means approximately 12 to 14 thousand spectators come to the auditorium willingly during the festival days to witness 14 to 15 plays. The organization also produces play-productions-conducts seminar on theatre related issues-organizes acting workshops with the help of eminent theatre personalities. It has 8 major play-productions in its present repertoire- CHILEKOTHAR SEPAI-NOKSHI KANTHAR MAATH-ASWACHARIT-KHOWABNAMA-DASYU KENARAM-HARIYE JAY MANUSH-BABORER PRARTHANA AND MEYETI. It has also organized 2 childrens theatre workshops so far and 2 childrens plays have come out-BHALOBASI SABUJ and SINGI DESHE BUBAI TUBAI. The group also publishes an annual theatre journal NATYAMANAN and 10 Theatre Bulletins named NATUKE in the month of December.As a regular theatre group-that has an annual average of 40 stage performances- it receives Grants under various schemes from the Ministry of Culture. The organization has started to construct its own theatre building on its own 2800 sq.ft. land for which Ministry of Culture has sanctioned building grant amounting to Rs1500000. Once the long-dreamt-of-BUILDING is constructed- the organization will start INSTITUTIONALISED THEATRE ACTIVITIES specially among the children. Eminent theatre personalities like Tapas Sen-Khaled Choudhury-Rudraprasad and Swatilekha Sengupta-Goutam and Debsankar Halder-Suman Mukhopadhyay-Bratya Basu have worked in some of our play-productions. The group has travelled in all major cities in our country with its productions. It has also participated in various theatre festivals with its productions including NSD festival and Mumbai Neheru Centre festival. Almost all the performers of the group generally spend 7 hours daily for rehearsals, training and other theatre related activities. The group has 9 WHOLETIME THEATRE WORKERS. It has also a rich LIBRARY of 600+ books on THEATRE. Kalyani Natyacharcha Kendra aspires to be a professional Theatre Group in near future.