“The stage is our livelihood, and for a long time, the curtains had been down on our act. But, finally, we are trying our best to make a comeback, entertaining our audience, virtually through our Surabhi Drama Theatre Online shows.

Belonging to a community theatre group, Surabhi, I grew up amidst artists and actors. Right from my childhood, I watched my parents and grandparents put on different costumes and perform live in front of hundreds of people. We usually play different characters ranging from mythology, history and social issues.

Our community has a history of more than 135 years and all the members of the family (from kids to the elderly) get involved and play different characters while performing the live drama shows. I remember we used to live in makeshift tents and move from one place to another, every three months to perform Surabhi drama shows across the country. It was quite natural for me to get into this field and I chose to be in the background, doing live music and make up for the artists.

I am a music director and composer for the Surabhi shows and am also a professional make-up artist. I do make-up for dancers, performers and artists for both Surabhi artists and outsiders.

We’ve performed and initiated 1000s of plays covering a wide range of historical and mythological tales. However, the audience for this age-old art form has started to decrease over the years and the ongoing COVID 19 pandemic has been the biggest enemy of our lives. We had no shows and livelihood for more than 10 months due to the Covid restrictions. Many talented artists from our community have started working in the private sector to feed their families, while some continue to keep Surabhi alive. Fortunately, with the help of online Zoom meetings and Social media lives, we were able to perform virtually for the audience across the world following the Covid protocols.
We just hope that things settle down soon so that we could sustain ourselves and continue entertaining our viewers.”

PS: Surabhi Drama is Telangana & Andhrapradesh state’s largest surviving group of traditional theatre.
More than 200 families depend on the Surabhi Drama Theatre.

The performers of the Surabhi theatre have been conducting online shows to survive amidst the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

One could avail of the show bookings exclusively by contacting Mr. Jayanand Rekandar, who’s the organiser for the online shows on +91 86865 56631.