THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Picture this. A stage, all yours to experiment and perform, with all facilities, a gallery seating which can accommodate a crowd of 400, an air-conditioned theatre space, three green rooms, dormitory, and a gallery for holding painting and photo exhibitions. The stage is yours, noted artiste Soorya Krishnamoorthy tells you. And that too for free.
Krishnamoorthy still recalls the initial stages of his artistic career, when he found it difficult to get a stage for theatre performance.
“Fourty years back, I faced the difficulty. For beginners, it is difficult to get stages considering the excessively high rates incurred in renting out a stage. It is a problem vexing any beginner,” Krishnamoorthy says.
And, so Krishnamoorthy has set up a black box theatre in the cityon his family property which can be used by artists free of cost. The open-air auditorium ‘Ganesham’, which was used to stage theatre performances for more than one year, is being remodelled into the black box theatre. Apart from providing a platform for artists to stage their work of art, light and sound equipment and film projection facilities are also provided.
In short, it is one wide canvas that Krishnamoorthy has envisioned for artists. As the cultural society Soorya celebrates its 40th birthday, this is the gift to the people and artists, Krishnamoorthy adds.
By offering a space replete with all facilities for free, it could be the next step to reviving theatre. “It is the theatre artists who always find difficulty in obtaining stages to perform considering the exorbitant rates. They are the ones who are in dire need of help and promotion.
And I hope that this could provide a platform for them as well as art connoisseurs to enjoy good work of art,” says Krishnamoorthy.
“One of the high points is that the theatre provides immense possibilities to experiment,” he adds. “The idea is to develop the place into a major cultural hub,” says Krishnamoorthy.
“One of the advantages is that the Black Box Theatre can be reassembled and converted into an open-air auditorium and back in a matter of three days,” says Krishnamoorthy. The Ganesham will be the second Black Box Theatre in Kerala with the first one being in Kerala Sangeetha Nataka Academy.
Along with the theatre, ‘Ganesham Wall’ a huge wall which bears sculptures of 32 forms of ‘Ganesha’ will be inaugurated by Mayor V K Prasanth on Saturday. The 20-ft high and 40-ft wide wall encompassing the Ganeshas has been sculpted by Biju Chakkuvarakkal. The Theatre which rests on a 20 cent property can also be used to stage Kerala art forms and screening films.