Stages Theatre Group celebrates a youth-led theatre festival featuring 13 original plays by 14 child and youth theatre groups, designed, curated and run by young people.
Colombo, Sri Lanka: Stages Theatre Group (STG) brought together children and young people from across Sri Lanka for the 3rd Bell Children and Youth Theatre Festival, held on 30 and 31 May 2026 at Kolamba Kamatha, BMICH, Colombo. Entirely designed, curated and run by young people, the festival placed youth leadership at the centre of every part of the creative, curatorial and organisational process.
The festival presented 13 original plays by 14 child and youth theatre groups from communities including Bogawanthalawa, Galle, Jaffna, Marawila, Kahapola, Kelaniya, Modara, Anuradhapura, Avissawella and Colombo. Presented in Sinhala, Tamil and English, the productions reflected concerns, questions and experiences raised by young people themselves through the workshop process, including mental health, inequality, education, the environment, elderly care, blind conformity and the power of art.
A Youth-Led Festival Six Years in the Making
The 3rd Bell is the public face of a long standing national programme by STG, conducted in partnership with Kindernothilfe (KNH). Over the past six years, STG has supported 14 child and youth theatre groups across Sri Lanka, reaching more than 400 children and young people. These groups have collectively held more than 1,400 free weekly workshops and created 40 original children’s plays, many of which began within their own communities before reaching wider audiences through the festival.
First launched in 2023, the festival has grown into a national platform where young people do more than perform. They imagine stories, shape scripts, build ensemble practice, make creative decisions and carry the responsibility of presenting work to the public. The 2026 edition reaffirmed the importance of trusting children and youth not only to participate in cultural spaces, but to lead them.
The Plays: Voices from Every Corner of the Island
Across the two days, the 13 productions reflected the diversity of Sri Lanka’s young people in geography, language and lived experience. Among the performances:
- City of Yes (Colombo, English): A boy named Leo is punished for asking questions in a city where the word No has been erased. He finds others like him, and together they reclaim the power of asking Why.
- Aluth Lokaya / New World (Kahapola, Sinhala): A satirical science fiction play set in a future education system designed to eliminate emotional discomfort and what that costs humanity.
- Orey Vaanam / One Sky (Jaffna, Tamil): Three students navigate a deeply unequal competitive system and ultimately choose solidarity over compliance.
- Dima (Galle, Sinhala): A family’s confusion and frustration with an elderly relative is recast when the final reveal, dementia, transforms anger into compassion.
- Raattinam (Bogawanthalawa, Tamil): Children from an upcountry plantation community near a garbage dump fight to reclaim their right to learn in a clean, safe environment.
- Ekamath Eka Rataka (Avissawella, Sinhala): In a kingdom where art has been banned, secret artists make one final stand and change the heart of a king.
Additional productions came from groups in Marawila, Modara, Kelaniya and Bogawanthalawa’s Kirkoswold and St. Mary communities, further expanding the festival’s conversations around ritualism, nutrition, inequality, learning, care and imagination.
Why It Matters
The 3rd Bell created one of the very few spaces in Sri Lanka where children and youth from different regions, languages and social backgrounds could come together as equals, not as audience members, but as creators. This is central to the festival’s purpose. It changes the role young people are usually given in public cultural life. Instead of being spoken for, entertained or invited only to watch, they are given the space, skills and trust to speak, create, question, organise and be heard on their own terms.
That youth-led approach is especially significant because the festival brings together young people who may otherwise have limited access to professional theatre spaces. Participants from Sinhala, Tamil and English speaking communities, including children from the Malayaga Tamil community of the upcountry, meet not through competition or token representation, but through shared creative ownership. In that space, difference becomes a source of dialogue, collaboration and artistic strength.
“At a time when young people are navigating uncertainty and limited spaces for expression, the 3rd Bell creates room for dialogue, creativity and connection,” said Ruwanthie de Chickera, Artistic Director of Stages Theatre Group. “It is about building a generation that feels heard, capable and empowered to shape their world.”
About Stages Theatre Group
Stages Theatre Group (STG) is one of Sri Lanka’s leading professional theatre companies. Since 2020, STG, in partnership with Kindernothilfe (KNH), has been running free weekly theatre workshops for children and youth across 14 communities nationwide. The 3rd Bell Children and Youth Theatre Festival is the flagship public event of this programme.
Scenes from performances by STG’s children’s theatre groups from across Sri Lanka at the festival.
Children learning sign language at the festival during a workshop facilitated by Asoka Abeysekara.
The festival’s youth volunteers.
