Padmavati Rao

Padmavati Rao

24 JULY | 4:30 – 5:15

JYOTHI HALL, Southern Star, Mysuru

Padmavati Rao is an actor, writer, director, translator, and poet. Her presence in theatre and films spans decades. She speaks many languages but prefers writing in Hindi and is a published poet. As an actor, she has worked in Kannada, Hindi, English, Marathi, and even Malayalam and Tamil cinema (recent release being Maara). The Kannada films she has worked in include the still popular Geetha. Her forays into Hindi cinema include blockbuster films such as Pardes, TE3N (pronounced Teen), Padmaavat, Raat Akeli Hai, Tanhaji, and the recent short film Miniaturist of Junagadh that has won the award for the best film at the International Festivals of Pune and Spain. Her solo show titled; Kitchen Poems was performed at the prestigious Theatre Olympics in 2018. In 2021 she made a short five-minute film Journey of A Butterfly that was screened as part of a global project called Theatre Of The Streets.

She has translated five plays of Girish Karnad and one of Mahesh Dattani into Hindi. Padmavati is also a storyteller, painter, puppet maker, and puppeteer. Trained in process work as a facilitator she is on the Governing Council at Foundation for Human Learning and Growth -Aastha, combines process work and theatre in her work with children and adults. She trains teachers to use theatre in the classroom and has worked with teachers of private and government schools from around the country, in Bengaluru, Chennai, Delhi, the far-off Lakshadweep, and communities in the Himalayas too. She has conducted workshops abroad as well.

She hopes to make theatre more accessible to people of varied age groups across geographies through the Sarsayee Foundation for Theatre and Education of which she is the Managing Trustee. Its work has been experienced in the Himalayas, the South of India, and the far-off Lakshadweep Islands. These days her focus is on villages just outside Bangalore for now, where she endeavours to do and promote natural farming, arts, and crafts. Her interest in natural farming, and arts and crafts drives her to stay connected and build bridges between people and cultures.