- First Production
- RangaAayama
- About Fourth Corner Productions
- My Affair
- For Sanket
- For Black Coffee
- For Company Theatre
- For Forum 3
- For ForkBoy
First Production
Our first production is on and all over the place, this is the first time I have ventured into something called "theatre production and management", that is to produce, direct, publicize, an entire production ALL BY MYSELF!!. Till Ranga Shankara came to Bangalore I had taken a break from any form of theater for three years. The only touch I had was to write about it in newspapers. But theatre is like weed you cant get over it at all! So this time back with big bang!! The stand up comedy is called Keetale (mischief) with one of Kannada TV/Film's comedy star Sihi Kahi Chandru. His sensible comedy on ETV Kannada, Paapa Pandu and Silli Lalli, have won the hearts of many million Kannadigas. Our other play Ammavra Ganda has seen eight house full shows and going on strong. Next production Bembidada Bhootha is on its way. Check out Theatre Page for more details.
RangaAayama - 6 Day Theatre Festival
About Prakasam (Formerly Fourth Corner Productions)
Sathish heads Fourth Corner Theatre Productions, Fourth Corner Production is the dream child of many years conception and practical experience of theatre. This group is a collective of theatre people from different strata of Theatre People. There are directors, actors, technicians, designers, writers and producers who are part of theatre scene for more than a decade. This group strives and works with the old school concept of theatre which plainly believes in entertaining the audiences. To make it simple its 2 E's - To Enthuse & To Entertain. Although in existence from 2000 this group was in conceptual stages from 1995 after Nenasam and Rangayana interactions. The early years of Fourth Corner was mainly into assisting other groups with publicity, marketing and back stage. Experience and love of theatre has made its existence a fruitful truth.
The group has vibrant plans for future. The RangaAayama Festival is one big step towards it. The previous production Keetale (mischief) a Kannada standup comedy has got worldwide recognition. With Sihi Kahi Chandru on stage we are planning to take it on a world tour soon. There are many other multi lingual shows planned for 2005 and keep visiting us back on www.ivcorner.com/play.htm for further announcements. If you wish to Join Us or want to subscribe for its news letter just send a mail to prakasamtrust@gmail.com
My Affair
My affair with Theater started way back in High School and College Days, it was not until 1989, I got my first chance to be on Amateur Stage. From then till now its been a long journey through reviewing, critiquing and even sweeping the stage before the performance. This has been my first love and still remains the same. My writing skills were put to use in every production ranging from promotional material to play summaries. Slowly but steadily I got involved with professional theatre groups in city and did many productions all over country. My responsibilities included set design, script writing, acting and direction.
Will be putting up more and updating this page with information of my ever lasting affair! Due to sheer neglect and no interest in documentation I can not present the plays I was a part of in the past. Till Khel for Black Coffee in July 2004. I broke the jinx of not acting from 2001 January with this production.
More so I have dedicated my PhD programme "Theater as Communicator, in Modern Times", trying to realise the fact that theater still is the best way for communication or to put in better words wins more points over any other modern communication tools like TV, Cinema etc.
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| Pic : Rajeev |
I acted as constable Ratnan Lal, a dud and will do what inspector says; guy who ends up killing a man as per inspectors orders. This picture to the right just taken during rehearsals show the intensity we were in when we were rehearsing. My director Preetham Koilpillai called my first round of thrashing as WWF style. I then turned to little stronger and original beating Sanjeev the other guy in the picture got thrashed so badly that he stopped wishing me.
The play was well received and the best complement I got was when a girl walked up to me after the play and said are you from north India? (for people who don't know I am a pure-bred Bangaloreian), that made my day. This play was also done with no script, by improvising on the lines every day. This play also improved my vocabulary of bad words in Hindi! Well there was too much of it at least for Sanjiv.
Will look forward to do this again for the fun of kicking ass at least!! LOL
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| Pics : Ayush |
I was playing as Gogibious in "The Flying Doctor" the Molier famous French playwright, who is well known for his comedies. This time the director was Atul Kumar (remember the lead character from the song PAISA in the music video of Aagosh? yes its him) who took me in since I suited the role too well. well I hope he thinks that I did some justice if not complete!.
Had fun with to crew hmm I still remember every one on the stage asking me to sit down and I was happily smiling away at them to realise that I had not sat down in the next coming minute adding up to huge confusion.
But at the end of the day it was nice fun and that too after realising from the audience that it was a fantastic show! That is something we actors live for you see!! You would see me and Vivek Madan (who slapped me really hard on stage!)
FOR FORUM iii
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| Pics: Suresh |
I had not sung in plays other than Kannada till this play "Mareech The Legend". This play is about the demon Mareech who gets victimised in Ramayana by the Demon king ravana and plays an important role in abduction of Rama beloved Sita in Hinduisms greatest epic Ramayana. We performed two versions, one street play and three inside the auditorium in the usual Bengali Jatra style.
Coming back to what I did in the play - Imagine a Kannadiga singing in English with Bengali music composition. Well that sounds terrible but it did woo away the full house at Ranga Shankara. I was appreciated by one and all to my and to my director Ranjon Goshal's surprise. I even got e mails and many hits on this page after the production. Now I have the confidence of singing in any language and would not mind doing 1000 rehearsals of the same song.
I should thank Gopal (mandolin) and Kiron Da (harmonium) for supporting me when the Director was blaming me for not singing in tune! Without them my voice would have gone dead and all the starting notes to fly out to moon. Also I should thank my music loving family members who from childhood put me to the habit of listening to classical music.
FOR FORKBOY
M C Preetham came in and gave me an option of reviving my old stand up comedy. This was the one which I used to in late 90's. Well it was my favorite since it was about and around the city I live in Bangalore. Moreover keeping me as the most experienced theatre guy he did make some mistakes, well I took on the Kannada pieces which really worked with the first show. I fell in love with the audience when they laughed at all my vernacular jokes. The show went on well with all our preparedness but thanks for the good call of the technical rehearsal without which we would surely have had got tomatoes and rotten eggs from the crowd. But now if you ask them they would tell you what a show!!!DETAILS
M C Preetham aka MCP came in with this brilliant concept of old stand up comedy mixed with comic acts. We put together acts and stand-ups and opened it up for the first time in 2005. Keeping its original quality of being in your face people including Ranga Shankara could not digest it. We were banned from performing in Ranga Shankara after our second show! Call it freedom of non expression!
Mr. Funny Man has traveled across the country and we are soon planning to make it a regular feature of Bangalore's beaming socialite life. The cast and crew of funny man are...
P D Sathish Chandra: Who directs the show and also brings in the vernacular element. His stand-ups are more news based and which are on the stands right now. Being a big man and a big laugher he succeeds in getting smiles all over the audiences. He has rich theatre background of more than 15 years and also has acted in TV soaps and films.
M C Preetham: As his initials state he is an MC (Mike Compere) by profession. An engineering graduate by education his passion for the performing arts brought him closer to Mr. Funny Man. His initiation saw public performances and now Mr. Funny Man is travelling nation wide with shows from college students to corporates.
Iti Rawat: She is a model, artist, visual merchandiser, brand analyst gosh the list is end less. She works with Arvind Brands and has associated herself with Mr. Funny Man (ask MCP why a girl is in Mr. Funny Man!!) from the very first show. Her wit and presence in all the acts have helped us in a big way to create special costumes and garments to make it look good.
Prithvi Vishwanathan: MC by profession he is known for his daily breakfast show on Radio One FM 94.3 . The Bakra Prithvi pulls out every day is the highlight of this show. His rich experience of understanding and getting people to understand him verbally attracted all his audiences. A charmer by birth he has this uncanny talent of true physical humor.
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| The first Ramamani for Neenaanadre Naaneenena show :) |
The crew included big names too (other than mine ofcourse!!!) Written and Directed by S Surendranath, Sets Design was by M S Sathyu, Music by V Manohar. Phew it was pleasure working with Sanket since its the brainchild of Shankar Nag... my guru and motivation for my presence in theatre.
This high profile play saw me chipping in backstage and designing and printing of promotional material. But three days before the show I was asked to do a small role in the play. I realized later that although my stage appearance is small I "Ramamani" was mentioned by most of the characters all the time on stage. Interesting transformation from me to Ramamani is illustrated here.
I have not mentioned other ventures which were not of importance here, they have been moved to Prakasam website please check the remaining part of the adventure there. But I will be available to anyone interested in doing theatre and will be of assistance in any form required.
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