Summer is back for children

If you are unsure of how to keep your children preoccupied this summer, you can enroll them at Summertime, Prithvi Theatre's two-month long festival

When Sanjana Kapoor introduced Juggling Circus in Prithvi Theatre's Summertime last year, people asked her what juggling had to do with theatre. But by then, she was used to such questions.


Shashi Kapoor with children at an earlier edition of Summertime

She had faced similar queries when she had introduced a workshop on working with clay in the same theatre festival. All she told them was that juggling was a performing art and that they should wait to see the results. Much to everyone's amazement, although there were not many participants, by the end of the workshop, those who had enrolled had become champion jugglers.

And in this year's edition of Summertime, not only is juggling back, but there is also a host of new workshops for children from the age group of six to 16. For instance, there is a workshop on miniature theatre, where participants learn to create various aspects of theatreu00a0-- actors, story, sets, music, lights, costumesu00a0-- by replacing wood with cardboard, using paper puppets, Diwali lights and by writing their own scripts.

Another workshop titled Expression Through Movement, speaks of how we are increasingly becoming a verbal society that encourages reasoning, but in the process are losing out on other aspects of development, like the ability to use our body to solve problems. Thus, teaching the basics of Indian classical dance, the workshop uses dance and movement to explore alternate ways of solving problems.

The festival itself has also expanded to include one more venue, Bhavan's College in Chowpatty. (The other venues are Prithvi Theatre, Juhu; Akshara High School, Kandivli and Shishuvan School, Matunga.)
Summertime will feature a total of 40 workshops and 18 plays, out of which nine will be new productions.

Among them will be Naseeruddin Shah's adaptation of George Bernard Shaw's Arms and the Man. "He came to Summertime last year and said he wanted to do something for this year, something that was not just for laughs but serious," says Kapoor.

Despite just adding a new venue, Kapoor believes that Summertime needs to expand further. "When we started off in 1991, we had about four workshops. Now we have 40 across four venues. But this is not enough. We will probably touch 900 children this year, which is a small number. Children need more avenues like this where they can learn to be free and creative."

Registration: Forms are available till April 10 at all venues. (Bhavan's, Chowpatty; Prithvi Theatre, Juhu; Akshara High School, Kandivli and Shishuvan School, Matunga)
Call: 26149546