Rangayana's cream plays to make 25 years memorable

Rangayana, the State’s only theatre repertory in the city, is set to take out a tour to celebrate 25 years of its existence. The repertory was founded on January 14, 1989, the day of Sankranti festival.

To make it memorable, the tour titled ‘Ranga Yaana’ (meaning journey of theatre), will start from Mysore from the last week of February, where the troupes will camp for at least a week in select districts. Though the plans are still nascent, there are suggestions to spread the wings of Kannada theatre to Mangalore and also Bagalkot.

It is being thought over to bring back the old magic, by staging the previous and popular productions like D S Chowgale’s ‘Gandhi v/s Gandhi’; Girish Karnad’s ‘Thale Danda’; P Lankesh’s ‘Gunamukha’, among others. Of the 18 artistes of Rangayana, select artistes will be roped in.

Rangayana Director H Janardhan has already held a round of meeting to chalk out the programmes, but they are yet to be finalised, according to sources. It will be another big ticket event in the waiting for both the artistes and also theatre buffs, after the recently concluded ‘Bahuroopi’ national theatre festival.

Rangayana also plans to come out with new productions, with a new play every year.
Earlier, during the tenure of Chidambara Rao Jambe in 2008, a ‘Ranga Yaatre’ was taken out on account of Suvarna Karnataka year. Prior to Jambe, ‘Badavaane Rangotsava’ was organised during the period of director C Basavalingaiah, where plays were staged at every locality in the city.