The Story of the Bak-Bak Tree

The grand tour of our very first theatrical production – Karadi Rhymes – Once Upon A Bak-Bak Tree – came to an end on January 14 and oh, what a ride it was! Four months of conceptualisation and production. Three months of touring. Four cities. And seven houseful shows. We could not have asked for a better response from our fans in Chennai, Coimbatore, Cochin and Bangalore!

In July 2013, when we approached Evam Entertainment with the idea of a play based on our much-loved Karadi Rhymes, they lapped it up straight away. In order to build a narrative around the rhymes, they read all our picturebooks and listened to all our audiobooks and a month later, we had a team of four playwrights – internet celebrity The Local Tea Party, stand-up comic Balakumaran, Jagadeesh Kanna and Cinthoorika Dinesh – working on the script of Once Upon A Bak-Bak Tree. Once the scripting was complete, the actor hunt began. Five actors and two musicians were shortlisted, and the rehearsals commenced in September.

By November, Director Bhargav Ramakrishnan had put together a fabulous (if we may) production that was ready to reach out to its audience.

Two days prior to the premiere of Karadi Rhymes – Once Upon A Bak-Bak Tree in Chennai, all the tickets for the show were sold out. On Children’s Day, the musical premiered to a packed hall. Usha Uthup, Kunyu, Loki, Shooshaa, Venky, Drums Murali and Nishant took the crowd by a storm and the show was a stupendous success.

The same month, we travelled to Cochin and Bangalore, with the popular playback singer Anooradha Sriram performing in place of Usha Uthup. In Bangalore, due to an overwhelming response we had two shows on the same day. Everywhere we went, we continued to earn praises.

The two volumes of Karadi Rhymes are available on our online portal, on Amazon (Volume 1 and Volume 2), Flipkart (Volume 1 and Volume 2) and at any bookstore near you! Karadi Rhymes is now available as a DVD as well!