A massive theater production is bringing Bollywood to Austin this summer. An original twist on a classic love story, Raas Leela: An East Side Story, will play at the Long Center for one night only, August 22.
This production makes a triple historical reference, with a story about rival families that's modeled after Romeo and Juliet, and a name that plays on West Side Story, itself a modern retelling of the old classic. Though Raas Leela is a divine dance in Hindu text, this production uses it more as a theme, meaning "stories of love," creative director Rohit Ramachandran explains. The combination of references offers audiences a way in even if they aren't familiar with South Asian theater.
But the story is only part of the spectacle that audiences are in for, with 130 local performers and 20 people on the production team keeping it all together. The entire team from dancers to costume designers live in the Austin area, and although all have professional training, most have day jobs outside of performing arts.
This is the fifth and biggest production so far for local production company Agni Katha, part of the multi-disciplinary Agni Foundation for the Arts. That's really saying something, since Agni Katha is a decade old and specializes in large-scale productions.
"The best part about this is it's taking a familiar story — that's Romeo and Juliet — but putting a South Asian twist in it," says Ramachandran, "talking about how diverse perspectives and cultures can evolve the same fundamental story and add so much flavor and so much value to it."
The company also takes a distinctly multi-cultural approach, invoking the Hindi cinema industry but dipping into other cultural niches. There are nine major dance pieces, by count in a press release, showing off styles in contemporary and folk dance. It all starts with a "really lavish" Indian Ganesh Pooja procession, says Rohit Ramachandran, followed by jazz, kathak (from Northern India), bharatanatyam (from Southern India), garba (from from Gujarat), hip hop, and heels.
With so many performers, the possibilities for group dances are vast.Photo courtesy of Agni Katha
"The dance actually kind of weaves into the story very organically," says Ramachandran. "We don't have a hip hop dance because because we want to put hip hop. ... It's basically [main characters] Ram and Leela on the streets finding an underground dance party and then just popping into it."
That choreography ethos — combining the work of 12 choreographers — is analogous to the whole production, which Ramachandran says exists not to present a grand view of any certain style or culture, but to get normal Austinites authentically involved in live theater.
"Here's an opportunity where we're getting local Austinites who have their day jobs and live their lives, but then we're getting them to become artists," says Ramachandran. "You can still take care of your kids. You can still have your nine to five, but if you do have that passion for art and if you want to do something, here's a platform that we've created for you."
The musical has been in the works for almost a year. Ramachandran has his own day job in tech, working at Meta with entertainment partners. He says now he's learning woodworking to help build the set, which utilizes reclaimed materials, and he'll act in the production as Arjun, Leela's brother.
"Unless we really invest time and energy to ensure that we support theater artists and live performances, I don't want it to become a figment of imagination or something that's always seen on screen," he says. He later adds, "Let's just get back to that culture of appreciating art, live theater, music. There's so much that this world has to offer, and I feel like a little, little bit of it is getting eroded with the whole digital space. [So] hopefully, we can bring it back."
Photo courtesy of Agni Katha
Suhaani Srireddy plays Leela Rathod in Raas Leela: An East Side Story.
Tickets to Raas Leela: An East Side Story (starting at $42.12) are available at my.thelongcenter.org. The show starts at 7:30 pm and has a run time of 120 minutes.
