bengalurubased kannada theatre group sanchaya has kickstarted a new initiative called sanchaya cares in an effort to support artistes during these tough times through a social media post the collective stated like all facets of life affected by the coronavirus pandemic kannada professional theatre is also going through intense turmoil artistes whose life revolved around theatre who were providing much needed entertainment to the people have suddenly found themselves needing support for even their basic needs sanchaya cares is a sanchaya trust initiative to help such people join hands in helping the people in need chitrashekar ns president of sanchaya elaborated on the new initiative through a videofounded 1988 sanchaya is the brainchild of gs rama rao a teacher he envisioned the role of art and culture in moulding human personalities and brought together his students to form a troupe sanchaya which translates to the coming together of was intended to be a melting pot of drama literature and creativity the team started out by putting together plays by the then students and now founding members of the collective their first play was vallabhapuriyadantakathe which was followed by several other dramatic pieces its now a repertoire of more than 40 playssome of their popular plays include pratibimbagalu which was critically acclaimed for the multidimensional portrayal of a classic prominent theatre artistes cg krishnamurthy r nagesh s surendranath suresh anagalli krishnamurthy kavathar sk madhava rao abbur jayatheertha kathlu satya iqbal ahmed joseph john and shashidhar barighat are associated with sanchaya