The lights dim, and a hush falls over the group, because the final nawab of Oudh strides onto the stage at Palo Alto’s Cubberley Theater. Or Mom Teresa takes the highlight. Or 18th-century police chief Ghasiram Kotwal, the star of the Naatak manufacturing that can open later this month.
And the rapt crowd? They’re theater-loving Silicon Valley engineers, academics, mother and father, pals and colleagues drawn to the fantastical dramas that play out on the Naatak Home stage with a solid of a whole lot and audiences within the hundreds.
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Naatak, which suggests drama or play in Hindi, has staged theatrical performances for the Bay Space’s South Asian group for almost 30 years, with an ensemble and viewers which have elevated tenfold over time. The largest Indian theater firm within the nation has discovered its group, and extra followers are on their manner.
Greater than 1,000,000 individuals of South Asian heritage dwell in California, an unlimited diaspora that features people from Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, a lot of whom started arriving within the twentieth century. 1 / 4 of that Desi inhabitants lives in Santa Clara County, with one other quarter divided between Alameda and Contra Costa, their day by day lives a testomony to the variety and breadth of the South Asian group. You’ll discover engineers, medical doctors and teachers amongst them and other people in each different line of labor, too – together with the theater.
Because the South Asian group has put down roots over the a long time, so have the organizations dedicated to creating third locations – a coinage by sociologist Ray Oldenburg for the locations the place individuals can collect, socialize and bond outdoors work and faculty.
That’s how Naatak started in 1995, when UC Berkeley and Stanford theater lovers launched their nonprofit.
That was the impetus, too, for the Milpitas-based India Group Middle or ICC, which started when a small group of South Bay seniors started on the lookout for a house away from house, an area to talk, to play playing cards, learn and talk about present occasions. What began in 2003 with a handful of individuals renting a room in an area church is now a sprawling facility headquartered in Milpitas, with places throughout Santa Clara County’s West Valley, the Peninsula and the Tri-Valley.
Although it began as a DIY senior heart – and nonetheless gives a few of these providers in the present day – the India Group Middle has change into a multigenerational group hub and the biggest Indian American group heart in North America, with a constituency that ranges, says CEO Manoj Goel, “from 18 months to 100 years old.”
Some 1,400 children take part in its summer time camp applications every year, and afterschool choices embrace lessons on Bollywood dance, robotics and even Spanish. The middle is now a 3rd place, the place a brand new era of the diaspora has grown up and located its individuals.
And like Naatak, the ICC is a gem within the area’s Desi group crown. It’s a spot the place dignitaries and celebrities from India usually cease when visiting the Bay Space, Goel says.
Naatak’s origin story lies with a bunch of school college students, led by co-founder and inventive director Sujit Saraf, who have been trying to convey a tradition of theatergoing to the Bay Space’s budding Indian inhabitants. To create an area, in different phrases, for individuals who had caught the “kida,” or bug, for theater, says Harish Agastya, the nonprofit’s operations director.
When its founding members placed on their first manufacturing in 1996 – with 15 individuals on stage and behind the scenes and 200 within the viewers – Naatak was the one theater firm of its form on the scene. Nearly three a long time later, Naatak just isn’t solely the largest theater firm of its form within the U.S., it has impressed the formation of comparable theater ensembles, together with the Bay Space Drama Firm.
Naatak’s exhibits have grown as nicely in intricacy, ambition and dimension. Staged with a solid and crew of 150, every present attracts hundreds of attendees. Some performs are Desi takes on classics, just like the latest manufacturing of Alfred Hitchcock’s “Dial M for Murder.” Others are comedies, resembling “The Very First Maruti.” Written by Saraf, it tells the story behind the primary Maruti, a well-liked automobile in India.
As they head into their 112th manufacturing – a music and dance-filled story of deceit, trickery and violence in 18th-century India – longtime members of Naatak say they’re responding to a primary want from the group and having enjoyable alongside the best way. And their advertising and marketing funds?
“We don’t spend any money on marketing, yet these people find us,” Agastya says. “We even have visiting parents or uncles or cousins from India come to watch Naatak plays who are thrilled to see such a thing exists in the Bay Area, sometimes doing things at a scale not even possible in India.”
Desi individuals have all the time had an curiosity within the arts and tradition, Agastya says. They simply wanted a spot to nurture it. That they discovered group amid the spectacle is a bonus.
Extra…
Discover particulars and ticket info for Naatak’s 2025 season and stream performs from prior seasons at www.naatak.org.
Study extra concerning the India Group Middle and its applications at www.indiacc.org/.
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