I’m so hungry I could eat an elephant!” posters at Ranga Shankara shout out. “There’s a little drama in all of us. And that is our promotional campaign for this year’s festival” says Arundathi Nag, Creative Director, Ranga Shankara.

The Ranga Shankara theatre festival promises to be bigger and better than before. “This is the fourth year that the festival is being organised for the City and for the state of Karnataka,” says Samuel Selvakumar, Operations Director, Vodafone Essar South. Vodafone has partnered with Ranga Shankara for each of their festivals.

The theatre recently held a preview of the festival for friends and media personnel. “Shankar Nag was involved with movies but he never forgot theatre. And this space is dedicated to him” said Arundathi, addressing the gathering which was more like an intimate get together of friends.

“Ranga Shankara is like a family. And not just that, it has in many ways also brought the youth back to theatre. They come here, lounge around in the cafe and of course watch plays. The space has in many ways got them involved in theatre,” said Girish Karnad, Playwright and Chairperson of the Sanket Trust. And youth is the focus of this year’s festival. “This year’s theme is youth. The festival will feature plays whose content will be of interest to young people,” said Arundathi.

The festival does feature big names and has an interesting line-up. Starting with ‘Andha Yug’ by critically acclaimed director Ratan Thiyam and closing with Antigone which will be performed by Naseeruddin Shah’s group Motley.

The other plays during the festival include ‘The Suit’ directed by Neelam Mansingh, ‘Crab’ written by Ram Ganesh Kamatham and directed by Arghya Lahiri, ‘Medha and Zoombish II’ directed by Ramu Ramanathan and Chandrashekhar Kambar's ‘Thukra's Dream’. Ranga Shankara’s Play-the- Play scheme features three plays.

The play-the-play scheme is a project undertaken by Ranga Shankara in which, they facilitate production of plays by getting theatre groups, directors and a story together. ‘Holi’, ‘Romeo and Juliet’ and ‘Bahumukhi’ are this year’s play-the-play productions. All the plays are in different languages and features veteran directors, new generation directors and new productions in Kannada.

This year’s festival will include a carnival with juggling, puppets, fireworks, singing and just about anything. There’s a lot of activities ranging from poetry readings to college students’ platform performances. The preview for the media featured a short performance directed by French director Claire Denieul.

The upbeat performance is this director’s interpretation of all the plays in the festival this year. It’s collage-like quality provided insights into each play and the enthusiasm of the actors seemed to reflect on the youthful energy of this year’s festival.

And Claire certainly summed it all up, “I had four days to work on this show and I was working with actors who I am unfamiliar with but it turned out great. I highlighted emotions and other aspects that we associate with youth- energy, sensuality; I got the actors to contribute with their own experiences because Bangalore does have a strong urban culture and a lot of young people. And this is what this year’s festival is all about!”

The festival is on from October 20 to 28 and has two shows everyday. Tickets for matinee shows are priced at Rs 70 and evening shows are Rs 150 and are available at the venue. For the schedule and further details contact Ranga Shankara at 2649 3982/ 2659 2777.