The ten-day festival will comprise presentations from 10 groups from all over the country. The groups include the Sanskaar Rang Toli (Theatre In Education), NSD; Kinnara Mela of Karnataka; Sutrapat of Calcutta; Rang Vidhushak from Bhopal; Maharashtra Cultural Centre and DATE, Pune; Natyashala and Sahitya Kala Mandal, Mumbai; Khilona and Umang from Delhi and Natrang from Jammu.

While some of the plays would be in their respective regional languages like Marathi, Kannada and Bengali, others would be in Hindi. The groups will be performing plays by children and also by adults performing for children.

Speaking at a press conference yesterday, NSD director Ram Gopal Bajaj said that if theatre as a subject is introduced in school curriculums and children initiated into the world of theatre and drama from an early age, the society at large would stop viewing theatre as a lesser form of art.

According to him, governments and schools should promote theatre on the same level as they do sports, music and computer training.

With this festival, the NSD hopes that such events will be organised all over the country to inspire creativity among children as well as teachers who may be teaching other subjects but have the spirit of the artist and performer in them.

While there will be no workshop attached with the festival, the NSD is planning to follow it up with a panel discussion on the issues and problems connected with culture, theatre and education on November 20 at the studio theatre, NSD repertory Company, Rabindra Bhawan, Feroz Shah Road at 10 am.