Date:22/08/2007 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2007/08/22/stories/2007082250530200.htm

Other States - Orissa

Open air auditorium in Berhampur sought

Staff Reporter

Prohibitive cost: The open air stage at the Khallikote College.

BERHAMPUR: Cultural activists of the city are worried over dearth of a stage for performance within their reach. They demand construction of an open air auditorium within the city limits.

Mihir Tripathy, editor of the ’Abhinaya Jagat’, a magazine to promote stage activity said small budding cultural troupes of the city were finding it hard to show off their skills due to dearth of an open air stage or auditorium within the reach of their purse. He said it was high time the Berhampur Development Authority (BDA) built an open air auditorium with a hall for rehearsal of performing troupes.

At present only large auditorium in the city is the Kavisurya Rangamanch, which gets booked for different purposes including clearance sale of sarees for months together. Cultural activists used to hold shows at an open air stage at the Khallikote autonomous college stadium in the past as it was being rented out for a few hundred rupees.

But recently the college authorities increased the rental of the stadium and its open air stage to Rs. 20,000, making it hard for small cultural troupes to afford it.

A cultural group had to shift the venue of their show ’Vande Mataram’ to an open space in front of a housing complex on Aug 17 at last moment as they could not afford the hiked rental of the open air stage at Khallikote college stadium.

The members of the Ganjam Mancha Abhinetri Sangh, an organisation of female artistes, also faced similar problem when they were not allowed to rehearse for their play to be enacted on Sept 1 at a hall at the Kavisurya Rangamanch. These female artistes have also got together with the demand for an open air auditorium with rehearsal facility.

The chairman of the Berhampur Development Authority (BDA), Sarat Ranjan Patnaik also accepts the need for a space for cultural activists of the city. According to him, an unused open space near Gate Bazar, which is to be connected by a proposed bypass road is being thought up to be converted into an exhibition ground. An open air stage can be added to it to make it serve as open air auditorium in time of need. But the stage artists are eyeing an open government land near Hill Patna area of the city to be transformed into an open air auditorium.