Master Sridhar, well-known in the Tamil theatre circle passed away yesterday. Beginning his career as a child artist, Sridhar acted in many films, including Kandan Karunai , Karnan , Swamy Ayyappan . He proved his mettle in social genre too cast as hero in K.S. Gopalakrishnan’s Kurathi Magan , starring Gemini Ganesan and K.R. Vijaya.
However, as an adult actor, it was his performance in mythological plays that earned him recognition. Especially, his role as Narada in the TV serial, Naragasuran , produced under the banner of National Theatres by this writer and R.S. Manohar jointly and telecast by Doordarshan, Chennai Kendra, in 1991 won him laurels. A highly devoted and disciplined artist, Sridhar would always get deeply involved in the character he donned. He acted as the young Aadi Sankara in the play of that title and appeared as the senior savant when he presented the play under his own banner, Sri Chakra Stage. The play was staged over 200 times. Another milestone was his title role in the play, Thirunavukkarasar , produced by K.R.S. Kumar’s Nataka Kavalar Kalai Koodam. The performance fetched him the R.S. Mahonar’s silver rolling trophy for best actor from Mylapore Academy for the year 2010. He had the privilege of staging his play, Maangani , at the World Tamil Conference in Thanjavur.
Sridhar lent his voice to a number of artists and wrote the lyrics and composed music for devotional CDs including ‘Sri Skandha Geetham’ sung by Nithyasree Mahadevan, Unni Krishnan, Rajkumar Bharati, etc. He presented religious discourse on Zee TV Tamil for “Olimayamaana Yedhirgalam” daily in 2012.
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