THEATRE FEST – A 3-Day Spectacle

“I think there is no world without theatre” – Edward Bond

Keeping up with its tradition of imparting holistic education and all-around development, the Bhawanipur Education Society College held its 8th edition of the Theatre Festival for 2023 from the 5th of April 2023 to the 7th of April providing theatre-loving students with a stage to showcase their talent. Since 2016 it has been the only 3-day festival of theatre in West Bengal, which boasts of 13 colleges from Kolkata coming under one roof of the college to perform in 8 separate competitions related to one or the other form of theatre.

On day 1, the festival saw its inauguration ceremony at 10 a.m. at Jubilee Hall. The audience present consisted of students from the college and participating teams of other colleges with their representatives witnessing the unfolding of the festival through a video trailer depicting its essence. The theme of the festival was “Speculo: I within Eye.” which was disclosed by the Dean of Student Affairs, Prof Dilip Shah. The ceremony also saw the felicitation of Ms. Moubani Sarkar, BA English (Hons) Semester IV student. She won Gold at the State Rowing Championship by members of the management Sri. Jeetu Shah and Sri. Umesh Thakkar. A video montage of her achievements was also displayed in the background while she was felicitated. Further, Prof. Dilip Shah shared his thoughts on the occasion through Shayari, poems, and quotes from famous playwrights and poets alike.

To begin the Three-day fest, the Flames team of the college presented a dance performance. The first event was the Audio drama (Suno Kahani) which marked the beginning of the three-day journey of the Theatre Fest. The event started at 11 am in the social hall of our college and saw the participation of 7 colleges, where each team consisted of 6 members. The time limit of this event was 6 +2 minutes where the performers took the audience into their imagination as they heard the performers enact. Teams explored themes like the reunion of a group of friends, and strangers meeting on a train which was highly relatable for the audience. In the end, the judge for the event, Ms. Pratigya Ghosh gave the performers a tip to level up their performance by keeping their energy high as per the situation they were depicting. The winner of this event was the main team of BESC, Aarohan, with the 1st and 2nd runners being The Heritage College and BESC Antarjaal.

On the same day, ‘Sadak’, the street play competition was held which included 20 people in a team performing on relatable ideas such as stress imposed on students by the current educational system, and the power grabs in politics. The 3-hour event took place on the Turf of the college from 4 P.M. to 7 P.M. The judge of the event was Mr. Suprovo Tagore. The winner of the event was Heritage Law College with the 1st Runner-up being BESC Antarjaal. The position of 2nd runners-up was shared by BESC Aarohan and Scottish Church College.

Another Solo event ‘Symphony’ was a Monoact event of individuals from colleges and universities acting out a single script of 6 minutes. This 3-hour long competition started at 10 A.M. and ended at 1 P.M. in the Jubilee Hall. The judges of the event were Ms. Vineeta Abhani and Mrs. Ritwika Choudhury. Topics that were explored here were the loss of a child from a mother’s perspective, the hypocrisy of Hindu religious rituals, and unrealistic standards in today’s work field. The winner was Yuvraj Surana, a student from BESC Aarohan. The 1st runners-up were Deepti Pancharia from BESC Aarohan and Anish Poddar from B.P. Poddar College. 2nd runners-up were Upohar Jana from UEM Kolkata and Biswarup Chakraborty from Heritage Institute of Technology. There were 2 special mentions in this category namely, Sumit Kumar Das from UEM Kolkata and Mansi Jaiswal from BESC Aarohan.

After the Monoact, the next event, Jokes Jalsa, a Comedy drama lightened the mood of the audience and lifted their mind from the daily problems of their life. The event started at 2 P.M. and went on till 3:30 P.M. at Concept Hall. The participating teams made use of daily life situations such as Saraswati puja and inserted the concept of comedy in a way that was appealing yet not disrespectful to others’ emotions. The judges for the event were Mr. Apratim Chaterjee and Mrs. Ritwika Choudhury. The winner of the event was BESC Antarjaal and the 1st and 2nd runners-up were UEM Kolkata and Heritage Institute of Technology respectively. There was also a Best Actor Male Niloy Ghosh from Heritage Institute of Technology and a Best Actor Female Srishty Tiwari from Heritage Law College.

After the comic relief, was, the You or Me: The Improv competition which began at 4.00 pm in the Jubilee Hall, consisting of participants in a pair of 2 each from different colleges. The judge of the event was Mr. Aaron Targain who made sure the event would be fun and competitive. There were 2 rounds involved, round 1 was where the performing pair was given a topic selected by the audience or the judge and given 1 minute to prepare and 3 minutes to perform. Many of the pairs were eliminated and only 6 pairs made it to Round 2. Here in Round 2, all six teams were asked to perform together on a single topic selected by the audience or the judge. The winner of this event was Mohar Choudhary from Shri Shikshayatan College, 1st runner-up was Yuvraj Surana from BESC Aarohan, and Debashish Ghosh was the 2nd runner-up from Heritage Academy. There was also a special mention, Danny Daniel Murthy from Scottish Church College.

The Improv act was followed by ‘As You Like It’, the Boardroom drama event which was a new addition to the Theatre Fest roster. It started at 6:30 P.M. in the Concept Hall of our college. Day 2 of the Fest concluded with parallel Boardroom drama events in different venues where the actors performed in flash mob style. The teams made clever use of the surrounding environment and they incorporated it into their act. The spectacular part was the audience’s reaction and astonishment. The winner here was the UEM Kolkata. 1st runner-up was BESC Aarohan and 2nd runner-up was Shri Shikshayatan College.

The last event of Day 2 was Vigya Pun, an AD spoof event that took place in the Concept Hall from 7:45 P.M. till 8:15 P.M. and consisted of 4 teams acting as Advertisers for commodities like Remote, racket, matka, and pipe. The event was judged by Mr. Zaheed Hossain, Mr. Suprovo Tagore, and Mr. Apratim Chatterjee. The participants used comedy and suspense as tools to focus on the greatness of the items. Day 2 of the fest ended with the sheer joy of experiencing Theatre like never before. The winner was the BESC Aarohan team with the Shri Shikshayatan College coming in the 1st runner-up place and UEM Kolkata as the 2nd runner-up.

Day 3, began with the Centre stage, a Stage play that marked the grandeur of this 3-day fest, with 9 participating colleges staging individual acts of 30 – 45 minutes each. The teams introduced themselves after their performances and the judges gave their verdicts on each performer as well. The event started at 10:30 A.M. and ended at 6:30 P.M. which brought forth themes like the status of women in society today, Swachya Bharat, the life of stray animals in Kolkata, etc. All the acts were powerful enactments of life as we know it & expressed with the same life-like intensity. Here, BESC Aarohan bagged the 1st prize. The 1st runner-up was Heritage Law College and 2nd runner-up position was shared by the Scottish Church College and B.P. Poddar College. There were some special mentions like Best Director was Deepti Pancharia from the BESC Aarohan team and the Best Script was given to Rajdeep Sarkar and Niladri Ghosh from Scottish Church College. The Best Actor award went to Alapon Sarkar from Heritage Law College and Priyangshu Banik from the BESC Antarjaal team.

The 3-day fest ended with a Closing ceremony where all the winners were felicitated by the Dean of Student Affairs, Prof Dilip Shah, accompanied by Mr. Suprovo Tagore and Mrs. Ritwika Choudhury. After the closing ceremony, the students danced to some tunes to celebrate the 3-day long Theatre fest coming to an end.

Reporter – Aniket Dasgupta