To mark its silver jubilee, Nandimukh, an active theatre troupe of Chittagong, are organising a nine-day Nandimukh South Asian Theatre Fest from tomorrow at the Chittagong Shilpakala Academy. This is the first of Nandimukh's yearlong celebration programmes. Some nine

troupes from Bangladesh, India and Nepal will stage their productions at the festival.

On the opening day, hosts Nandimukh will stage their production "Urnajal", written by Bakar Bokul and directed by Faiz Zahir. Indian troupe Mangolik will stage "Manush Bhoot” on the second day, written by Syed Mustafa Siraj and directed by

Sameer Bishwas. The following plays at the festival are: "Nirasroy” by Songlap Kolkata (India), written and directed by Kuntal Mukhopadhyay based on story by Subrata Sen; "The Trial of Mallam Ilya" by BotTala (Dhaka), written by African playwright Mohammad Ben Abdallah, adapted by Soumya Sarkar and directed by

Mohammad Ali Haider; "Tobuo Manush" by Nandimukh, written and directed by Abhijit Sengupta; "Poramati" by Padatik Natya Sangsad Bangaldesh, written by Babul Bishwas and directed by Irin Parvin Lopa; "Bisarjan" by Biborton (Jessore), written by Rabindranath Tagore and directed by Debashish Bhattacharya Palash; "Jumping

Frog" by Mandala Theatre (Nepal), written and directed by Sajan Thapa Magar and "Protarok" by Rongasrom (India), written by Kaushik Chattopadhyay and directed by Sandeep Bhattacharya.

Apart from the plays, the festival will also feature cultural performances by reputed artistes every day at the Aniruddha Mancha.