Kalopasak to digitise 100 plays, Bal Gandharva interview
News — By The Desk on August 5, 2011 at 11:38 AM
Indian Express: City-based organisation Maharashtriya Kalopasak, which completed 75 years on Wednesday, is planning to digitise over 100 spools of various plays that the organisation had staged between 1950 and 1970. Besides the books, Kalopasak has in its possession many recordings, including an interview of legendary Bal Gandharva.
“We plan to digitise these recordings too. Starting from October we will be holding a monthly programme in which these recordings will be showcased for theatre lovers. We will also digitise various old letters and theatre-related newspaper cuttings of that era,” said Ninad Bedekar, the president of Maharashtriya Kalopasak.
The organisation was established on August 3, 1936 by teachers of Nutan Marathi Vidyalaya. In the initial years, besides conducting independent plays, Maharashtriya Kalopasak used to organise inter-school play competitions too.
“But it was stopped when the state started inter-school play competitions. Since there were no one act-play competitions at college level during that time, Kalopasak started organising Purushottam Karandak in 1963, which is in its 48th year,” said Bedekar. The first president of the organisation was historian Datto Vaman Potdar and the vice-president Keshavrao Date.
“We aim to reach out to maximum number of art lovers. There are some rare recordings that will interest lovers art and theatre lovers, especially the one where renowned theatre personality Bal Gandharva was being interviewed,” said Hemant Vaidya, the secretary of Maharashtriya Kalopasak. He said the process of digitisation is expected to get completed in next three months.
The organisation also plans to create its own library that will house 400-odd rare books.
“All these books are drama-related; there are a few books that talk in depth about the technical details of stage and lighting. If the library plan does not materialise, we will donate these books to Bharat Natya Mandir from where people can borrow them,” said Vaidya.
