C. R. Simha

Channapatna Ramaswami Simha (16 June 1942 – 28 February 2014), better known as C. R. Simha, was an Indian actor, director, dramatist and playwright. He was best known for his work in Kannada films and for his work in stage shows. Starting his career in Prabhat Kalavidaru, a theatre group based in Bengaluru he acted in numerous Kannada plays which reached the cult status. He started his own theatre group called "Nataranga" in 1972 and directed many successful plays such as Kakana Kote, Thughlaq and Sankranthi. Simha also directed and acted in the Kannada adaptation of Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream and Othello. These plays found a widespread presentation across many states in India. Following this, he directed and acted in many English plays written by eminent personalities such as Moliere, Bernard Shaw, Edward Albee and Neil Simon among others. Apart from theatre, Simha acted in more than 150 feature films in Kannada which include both artistic and commercially viable projects. He also directed about five feature films with the most prominent being his own film adaptation of Kakana Kote. Simha received many awards in both the cinema and theatre fields. In 2003, he was awarded with the prestigious Sangeet Natak Akademi Award by the Government of India recognising his contribution to theatre acting and direction.