Ranga Shankara is Bengaluru’s premier destination for theatre lovers. The auditorium, which opened in 2004, was envisioned by Arundathi Nag, as a tribute to her late husband and versatile film personality Shankar Nag. Over 2700 performances have been staged at Ranga Shankara in over 20 languages including Kannada over the past two decades. Let’s go behind the stage to see how it all comes together.
Text and interview: Arvind Krishnaswamy
The bell goes off at ten minutes past seven in the evening. There is already a line of people at the foot of the stairs eager to go upstairs into the auditorium. Others take hurried last bites of their sabudana vada in the adjacent cafe to join the line. A bat flies around overhead and disappears into its roost somewhere in the roof or between the steel girders. Ten minutes later, the second bell goes off. People have quickly shuffled into the auditorium and found their favourite seats. The clock ticks towards 7:30 pm. The air of eager anticipation is disturbed by the nervous coughs and whispers in the semi darkness.
Lights dim and it is completely dark. Girish Karnad’s pre-recorded announcement alerts the audience to turn off mobile phones and enjoy the performance. Time seems to have stood still for the last twenty minutes but now theatre comes alive at Ranga Shankara. It’s Play Time!
Since October 28, 2004 when it opened its doors with Rangayana’s Maya Sita Prasanga, it has lived up to its policy of ‘a play a day’ but for the dark day on Monday (when there is no performance and lights are off). During COVID, the auditorium was shut down for about 5 months before reopening on August 15, 2021 at 50% capacity.
The dream of Shankar and Arundathi Nag, Ranga Shankara was designed by architect Sharukh Mistry with invaluable guidance from M.S. Sathyu. The construction of the 320-seater auditorium with a thrust stage and natural sound amplification took three years.
Over the years, many of us have walked in, enjoyed the creativity of the theatre groups and left with a sense of appreciation for the art. Have you ever wondered what happens behind the scenes to bring a theatre production to life?
The genesis of every play staged at Ranga Shankara begins with the Hire Space form. Theatre groups interested in booking space submit the form on the website all through the year. Ranga Shankara’s programming team periodically reviews the forms and assigns slots to each group. New groups are usually given mid-week slots initially and once the play does well, it can get promoted to a weekend slot. Besides handling bookings, the programming team is also responsible for organizing the eagerly awaited Ranga Shankara festival of plays, all in-house productions, the annual Mango Party (where art meets fruit) and the AHA theatre for children events.
This team is led by Manjunatha Sharma who is the Administrative Manager. A Master’s degree holder in Sociology from Bengaluru University, he has been with Ranga Shankara since November 2020. He is ably assisted by other team members including Srinivas N, who manages the box office.
Now that the space is booked and the countdown to opening has begun, lighting designers get busy. The actors are the cynosure of all eyes during a play but the light designer of each theatre group is responsible for drawing the focus of the audience to specific characters and accentuating the emotion or action. Some theatre groups that need a lot of lights for their play send their light rigging plan weeks in advance.
The technical and lighting team at Ranga Shankara is led by Muddappa Veerappa Shirahatti, also known as Belakina Muddanna (literally Muddanna of Light) in the theatre world. Originally from Haveri district, Muddanna is a veteran with 49 years of theatre experience despite no formal training. He has managed lighting for over 200 plays both in India and abroad, winning several awards along the way. Muddanna’s association with Shankar Nag goes back to Sanket’s first theatre production Anju Mallige in 1978.
“Shankar valued us technicians and he would give anyone an opportunity to learn as long as the person was willing and eager,” said Muddanna fondly remembering the energy and enthusiasm of the revered late actor and director.
Muddanna with his technical assistants Chidananda Murthy, Sachin and Manjunath KG work with the lighting designer who specifies the angle, height and colour of the lights required during the performance. Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, Ranga Shankara’s own production Robinson and Crusoe had some of the most challenging lighting setups according to Muddanna.
At Ranga Shankara, the lights can be moved to any position and any angle without physically shifting them. The bars move up and down to help rig the lights and an electrically operated work platform that can go up to 20 feet is used to focus lights once it is in the desired position. Ranga Shankara offers over 100 lights of 13 different types, including powerful fresnel spotlights of 1000 watts, but some plays work with as little as ten lights, which can take only 30 minutes to set up. When a play needs a lot of lights, it can take anywhere from 3 to 4 hours for the setup. It is the theatre group’s responsibility to operate the light board console during the play.
There is also an audio facility where background music can be played from phones or laptops during the play (this is the only electronically amplified sound in the auditorium).
There is no play without props of some kind – whether it be chairs, tables, paintings, mirrors, calendars, books, hats, artificial plants or simply anything we can see around us. Theatrical property or props may be lifeless, moveable objects, but they are crucial design elements for stage productions. Every prop on stage tells a story. While basic props like platforms are available at Ranga Shankara, theatre groups bring other props needed and take care of their assembly and disassembly. Props are not kept on stage after a performance due to limited space and to eliminate any hiding space for rodents and insects. Behind the cyclorama curtains at the back of the stage is a winch that can be used to lift heavy sets directly to the first-floor stage and lower it later to load it into vehicles.
Actors get into their costumes, don make-up in the green rooms on the upper floors and use stairs that lead down on either side of the thrust stage (the Quick Change room adjacent to the stage is used between scenes or acts of a play).
Rangaratha – Indian Performing Arts Company is a popular theatre group involved in plays, classical dance, movies and training people for a career on stage. Aasif Kshathriya, the Founder-Director knows Ranga Shankara inside out having used it for many years. He said the acoustics are wonderful and flawless, the lighting team is good and friendly and the entire staff is very cooperative. Rangaratha submits booking requests about one or two months in advance and normally get their desired dates. However, the group does not do a dress rehearsal due to the extra cost and wishes there was a provision to hire rehearsal space during early mornings. Aasif also pointed out that backlighting on the cyclorama curtain is not possible due to the reinforcement frame and the quality of the feedback speaker inside the console room could be improved to judge the final audio output accurately.
All the elements of a play come together on the day of the performance. A few hours before the show time, lights are rigged and everyone gets ready to unleash their creative energy on stage.
Next time you applaud yet another well produced and presented play at Ranga Shankara, spare a moment to think of all the passionate individuals and the teamwork behind the scenes that make it possible. Remember that with almost every play that is put on, there are more people behind the curtain than onstage. It takes immense hard work of talented artists, designers, administrators and production staff to make all this happen. Arundathi Nag succinctly summarised the role of her team in her own words:
“ Our job is to give theatre groups a world class space at a most affordable price. We make sure that it is clean, the show starts on time, and latecomers don’t disturb the audience. We also make sure that no popcorn or chips are sold or consumed inside the auditorium and people dont pull out their phones and start talking during the play. These are essential things that help to enhance the experience of the audience.”
Programming Office
Winch for stage props
Lighting Team
It's Play Time!
Every small town in the country should have a theatre like Ranga Shankara Excerpts from an interview with Arundathi Nag
It gives me a sense of great achievement because no other similar theatre space has opened in the country after Ranga Shankara. There is a sense of gratification that in these 20 years small children have walked into this place, have grown up and they still come here with their own children.
We had no idea that the project would be received with so much love, so much respect and care. All the Kannadigas and theatre people have a sense of ownership of Ranga Shankara and the work that is being done. Twenty years is a very short time actually in the life of the theatre when the art has existed for thousands of years. But for us in our lifetime, it is a big milestone.
It is difficult to answer that. How do we measure success? If we are measuring success in money, then theatre has a challenge because times have changed. You have entertainment on your phone, watch, everywhere. Theatre is about the blood, sweat and tears of the human body. If you have not seen today’s show, you cannot see it tomorrow. Theatre lives in the moment and that is the magic of theatre, the transience of theatre so to speak. So, theatre will continue to live, its importance will continue to be there as the basis of all performance art but in terms of flourishing or getting back the glory of olden days back, I don’t think so. It will become the petri dish where experiments can happen, very fine work that is not really for the masses. That may cost a lot of money and it may not generate good returns. It will be the way humankind’s frivolity or behavioural patterns can be studied and exposed. In an urban sense it has already become a niche art. But we are lucky that in India we still have space for our traditional art. Yakshagana, harikathe, koodiyattam and sattariya are all still alive. People still understand the art, the meaning and it is not merely because it is exotic or for ethnic reasons. We hope that people will understand the importance of preservation of theatre. So, I guess preservation of the art, experimentation in the art are both very important.
I hope that every small town in the country will have a theatre like Ranga Shankara. Karnataka is actually gifted because it has a lot of theatres. Ninasam by KV Subanna, BV Karanth, Girish Karnad, Chandrashekara Kambara, Sri Ranga, Gubbi Veeranna all have left a glorious trail behind, so theater is alive in Karnataka. Theatre is an art that helps you to focus, to articulate and to recognise your shortcomings. It gives you friends for life.
Courtesy: Ranga Shankara
I think we have definitely achieved it. I can put my hand on my heart and say that, because 70 percent of our programming is in Kannada, 30 percent is in Hindi, English, Marathi, all other languages. For 20 years we have very successfully managed to keep our programming balanced across all these languages.
New theatre groups are taking birth every day. When Ranga Shankara opened, there were hardly about 50 theatre groups. Today, the number has grown three fold. We’ve kept our prices affordable and this has encouraged people. Since day one, Ranga Shankara has not raised its rentals and we charge only two thousand five hundred rupees. It doesn’t have to be so expensive that you think twice before buying a theatre ticket.
Ranga Shankara produces quite a few plays for children. Ours is not theatre by children but for children. In India we don’t have a movement of theater for children. We expect that a play is one size fits all and any age group can watch it. Ranga Shankara produces plays which are age specific. If you’re talking about life, then how you talk about life to a three year old child is different from how you talk to a five year old or to a seven year old.
Until a child is about ten years old, it is really the parents who make the choice if they want their child to learn about theatre. By themselves children are enthusiastic and wherever they go, they will find something that interests them. We ensure that nothing that we do has a competitive edge to it.
If we want an audience educated in the aesthetics of art, then we must invest in children when they are very young. We get children from economically challenged backgrounds to take part in the plays and watch our productions. This social commitment is part of our philosophy of doing theatre.
A space like Ranga Shankara becomes important because it’s in an urban setting. The urban child doesn’t have much exposure to traditional art. They may know about Shakespeare, but they do not know our own Karnad, Kambara or Kailasam. Ranga Shankara is that bridge that allows a child who comes over here to be exposed to both.
I think now I’ve entered into the stage of where we are looking for succession. Twenty years completed, a good job done so far and certain benchmarks have been established. I really feel it is our responsibility to put a good young team together, groom them in the next five years to take this forward. I am focused on establishing a good corpus fund, because people don’t give money for theatre easily. This is something I realized when Ranga Shankara was being built but I’m optimistic.
This year is special, so I look forward to curating the Ranga Shankara festival but also hoping that we will find our team to take over curating from next year. Then we can walk in as visitors, sit back and enjoy the show.
Shankar would be very proud. He was not going to wait for 20 years for the next Ranga Shankara to come up. I think my horsepower is limited compared to him but I was able to deliver this, look after it, nurture it all these years. Yes, Shankar would have been happy. And he would have said, come on, how can you be happy with just one theatre?
