Bhubaneswar, May 29: After a gap of two decades, the theatre enthusiasts of the city are gathering at Jatni for the ongoing children's theatre festival.

The culture department had organised a children's theatre festival in 1989, but it had been discontinued since 1995. "We want to revive the tradition of theatre and promote its importance among the child artistes. We are working towards honing young talents. Hence, we made sure that theatre groups from across the state took part in the festival," said Mallick.

This time, the event is being organised by Uttaryani Club, one of the oldest in thetown, in collaboration with Odisha Sangeet Natak Akademi, and Divine Cultural Association, a local theatre group.

"We decided to conduct the festival outside the city as we wanted to promote theatre all across the state. Most of the prominent festivals are conducted in the city and we wanted this to change," said Sangeet Natak Akademi secretary Dhira Mallick.

Young artistes from two theatre groups from Dhenkanal and Nabarangpur showcased their skills at the festival today. While Charlie Chaplin Rhythm Theatre from Dhenkanal staged Mukti Salita, Purushottam Kalakendra from Nabarangpur presented Icha Thile Upaya Ape Ape Ase. Both the plays spoke of social issues and gathered appreciation from the audience. Mirror Theatre Group from Jharsuguda and Shatabdira Kalakar from Bhubaneswar staged their plays yesterday.

A number of theatre artistes, filmmakers and actors attended the festival. "Watching children's plays is a lot of fun. They teach a lot of important lessons through their performance. I am overwhelmed to see the turnout here," said filmmaker Raju Mishra, who attended the festival on its inaugural day.

One of the organisers said that the average turnout at the festival is around 300 per day.

The plays, which are being presented at the festival, were practised during workshops organised earlier by the theatre troupes.

Each of the workshops was held for a month where the young artistes were trained on various aspects of theatre production. It helped them understand how to make the play visually appealing for the audience with a play by the artistes of Natya Chetana. They will stage Surya Namaskar, a play that will depict how global warming has become a major cause of concern among environmentalists.