LAHOR E: At the parallel theatre festival by the Lahore Arts Council, Theater Wallay Productions staged on Wednesday the play, Marhoom Ki Yaad Mein. The production was a tribute to great literary figure Patras Bokhari.

Theater Wallay is a non-commercial group of artists with a passion for theatre and literature.

Based in Islamabad since 2005, Theatre Wallay has put up many performances of plays f rom world literature -English, Urdu and Punjabi. One of their original productions, the acclaimed `Daagh Daagh Ujala` (This Stained Dawn), toured the United States in 2015. Another one of our projects, On Common Ground, toured the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and Artists Repertory Theatre, Portland, in 2017.

The play, titled `Marhoom Ki Yaad Mein`, was a theatrical tribute to the great Urdu literary figure.

The play was written, adapted and directed by Imran If tikhar, one of the core members of Theatre Wallay.

The cast included Ahad Ali Siddiqui, Zia Rehman, Ramil Aftab, Adil Yousaf, Umer Farooq Bhatti, Usama Ahmad and Saboora Marium.

Mustafa Hasan designed the sound and lights forthe production. On Thursday( today) Azaad Theater will stage its play at the festival titled, Totaan Wala Khoo.

The festival which commenced on July 22 will conclude on July 29. The theatre festivalis getting attraction from the masses despite the fact that Lahore Arts Council is not focusing much on the advertisement of the festival.

Usually, no senior Alhamra of ficials remain present at the festival performance. The council has not even designed any good banner for the festival.

Dawn learned that relatives and friends of the production house people are inviting the audience by sharing the quality productions of the festival through word of mouth and sometimes through video clips.Art lovers demanded that the rooftop of Hall No 2 be checked. They said it is surprising that the council get huge funding but it does not pay any attention to such repairs which are vital. Back in the 90s, the roof of Hall No 1 collapsed. SHOAIB AHMED