The 10th Under the Sal Tree, a theatre festival, will begin at Rampur village in Goalpara on December 15, the organisers Badungduppa Kalakendra, a theatre training school, said on Friday.

The three-day festival, started by Sukracharjya Rabha — a widely respected theatre personality of Assam in 2008 — will stage plays from across of India and Bangladesh al fresco.

Like every year, the organisers will use bamboo and straw to build the stage and seats for spectators. But the untimely demise of the festival’s founder last year created difficulty for the organisers. This is the event’s second edition without its founder.

“We are gearing up for the festival. It was Sukracharjya Rabha’s dream project to stage plays in the open air. The event conveys a strong message of pursuing an eco-friendly lifestyle and saving the environment,” Madan Rabha, coordinator of the theatre festival, said.

Kukuiraja by Badungduppa Kalakendra will be the opening play, while Rakto Upakhyan by Kaushik Chatterjee from Bengal will be staged in the afternoon on the first day. The second day will witness plays like Seetar Agni Porikkha by Naznin Hasan Chumki from Bangladesh and Charandas Chor by Anup Hazarika from Guwahati. A Night with Gandhi by Gyanaranjan Sathua from Odisha and Meenai by Ranabir Khoisnam from Manipur will be staged on the concluding day.

Theatre groups from Europe and Latin American countries have participated in the event’s previous editions.

“The festival is also a campaign against global warming, the ever-increasing human-animal conflict and plastic menace,” Madan Rabha added.

Assam chief minister Sarbananda Sonowal recently visited Badungduppa Kalakendra and met the artistes.