Mukesh Chhabra Casting Co. is organizing Khidkiyaan Theatre Festival in Mumbai from January 13-17, 2016.

Mukesh Chhabra, who is very much, a child of the stage has started the initiative in a bid to give something back to theatre. He was an enthusiastic participant in many productions in any given capacity of theater and has directed over 50 plays and has acted in about a 100 productions. Taking from the mutual love of theater; the founder and the team at Mukesh Chhabra Casting Co. is proud to present its first stint in theatre.

The first edition of the annual fest is a non-ticketed event and will be held at Sathaye College, Vile Parle East, Mumbai.

Noteworthy filmmakers, Imtiaz Ali and Vikas Bahl, will inaugurate the first edition of the annual festival. The opening ceremony will be followed by a performance by Swanand Kirkire. The festival will conclude with a session of poetry reading and music performance by Ayushmann Khurrana followed by poetry reading by Piyush Mishra.

The five-day-gala-theatre-fest will feature five plays namely, Chittaranjan Tripathi’s Gunno Bai, Ishteyak Arif Khan’s Shadow of Othello, and Dheerendra Dwivedi’s Old Munk featuring Smita Tambe, Teena Bhatia, Dheerendra Dwivedi and Himanshu Kohli & Prashant Kumar’s Blackbird starring Swanand Kirkire and Salony Luthra and Ram Ji Bali’s Koi Baat Chale featuring Yashpal Sharma, Ritu Sharma, Ramji Bali and Tarun Bali.

Produced by Mukesh Chhabra’s father, T.C. Chhabra, all the plays apart from Shadow of Othello are being performed in Mumbai for the first time.

Apart from the plays, interesting talks and sessions will be conducted at the fest. Mukesh Chhabra will do a session on ‘Insight into Casting’, renowned theatre personalities Manav Kaul and Kumud Mishra will do a session on ‘Theatre in Cinema’, Manu Rishi and Piyush Mishra will do an Open Mic and there will be a music performance by Troubadours.

The festival will be attended by film personalities like Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Richa Chadda, Manoj Bajpayi, Nana Patekar, Suniel Shetty, Anurag Kashyap, Kabir Khan, Nandita Das, Abhishek Kapoor, Tigmanshu Dhulia, Aanand L Rai, Sudhir Mishra and Makarand Deshpande.

Khidkiyaan theatre festival

Khidkiyaan theatre festival

Mukesh Chhabra who has a background in theatre and was a faculty at National School of Drama (Tie Company) for kids for 9 years says, “Theatre is my first love. Whatever I am today, I owe it to theatre. It has given me a purpose in life and this is my way of paying back to theatre in a small way Khidkiyaan Theatre Festival is a first step in that direction and I would like it to become an annual event.”

He adds, ” My dad introduced me to theatre and I am happy that he has started this initiative.”

For more info click khidkiyaan.com and mccc.in