Telugu talent Jidnyasa Chilka makes her mark on Mumbai’s theatre stage

For Mumbai-based Telugu actress Jidnyasa Chilka, theatre has become more than a creative pursuit. It has been a demanding training ground where she has learnt to inhabit characters, experiment with voice and body language, and take on roles far removed from her own age and personality.

A Chemical Engineering graduate from Thane, Jidnyasa grew up in Kalwa in a family where theatre, music and other forms of art were part of everyday life. Her parents, who hail from Siricilla district in Telangana, moved to Maharashtra before she was born. Her parents, Chilka Vaidehi and Shekhar, encouraged her interest in the arts from a young age, while their own involvement in cultural activities gave her early exposure to performance.

Her father, Shekhar, an Indian Oil Corporation employee and singer, has a keen interest in Marathi theatre and would regularly take the family to stage productions on weekends. Her mother, Vaidehi, who holds master’s degrees in Psychology and Yoga, works as a yoga instructor and is also associated with theatre performances. Her brother, Soham, too, grew up in the same creative environment.

That early exposure eventually developed into a serious interest in acting. Jidnyasa began her journey by creating short-form videos on Instagram before working for a few months as an assistant director with a Marathi filmmaker during the pre-production stage. She later joined a casting company, where she gained practical exposure to auditions, scripts and different aspects of film production.

The experience helped her understand the industry from behind the camera before she increasingly moved towards acting.

A major turning point came with theatre. Jidnyasa was cast by National School of Drama alumnus Vijay Kumar in his production of John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men. She also attended a 15-day workshop at Heggodu near Mysuru, where she worked alongside around 35 professional artistes and gained exposure to both the theoretical and practical aspects of theatre.

For an actor without formal training at the National School of Drama, the experience presented its own challenges. However, the stage gave her an opportunity to test herself through demanding roles. The production of Of Mice and Men was subsequently staged in Hisar, Haryana, adding to her experience in professional theatre.

Jidnyasa is now associated with D for Drama, the theatre collective known for contemporary productions, and has appeared in Ambaa, directed by Atul Kumar. The Hindi-Bundeli production draws from the world of classical Greek theatre and the figure of Amba, combining satire, resistance and questions surrounding war and patriarchy. The production has featured on major theatre platforms and at festivals, including Repertwahr in Lucknow, while also being staged at Mumbai’s Prithvi Theatre.

Her contribution to Ambaa is particularly notable for the range demanded by the production. She portrays both a young woman and an elderly character, requiring her to shift between contrasting physicalities, emotional registers and stage presence.

It is Jidnyasa’s readiness to tackle physically and emotionally taxing stage roles that makes her stand out. Whether playing an elderly woman decades older than herself or switching between contrasting characters in the same production, she relies on voice modulation, body language and emotional restraint rather than theatrical exaggeration. These roles require extensive rehearsal and a good understanding of character, and the experience has helped her develop a distinctive stage presence in Mumbai’s competitive theatre circuit.

Her theatre work has continued across different productions and collaborations. She worked with theatre artiste Rasika Agashe on adapting stories by celebrated writer Amrita Pritam for stage performance. She also appeared in Dhoomrapaan, created by Akarsh Khurana under the D for Drama banner.

Another demanding assignment came with Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman, in which Jidnyasa played the salesman’s wife. The character is substantially older than the actor herself, requiring her to convincingly portray a woman in her sixties despite being in her mid-twenties. The role offered her another opportunity to demonstrate the physical and emotional transformation that theatre demands from an actor.

Her work has not been confined to theatre. Jidnyasa has also appeared in Telugu cinema, including The Family Star, starring Vijay Deverakonda and Mrunal Thakur. She also appeared in Janaka Aithe Ganaka, the 2024 Telugu film written and directed by Sandeep Reddy Bandla.

Apart from acting, she has also appeared in advertisements for brands such as Oppo and PhonePe. Her early experience in content creation, assistant directing and casting has also given her a glimpse into filmmaking beyond acting.

Jidnyasa is currently working as a content writer while continuing her acting pursuits. For her, theatre remains a vital arena for experimentation and learning, as each character comes with its own physicality, emotional demands and performance challenges.

She did not become an actress overnight. From watching Marathi plays with her family as a child to performing at established theatre venues in Mumbai, her journey has been gradual. Theatre has been her foundation, while cinema is another avenue to explore. The young Telugu artiste now wants to build on that experience and take up more challenging characters.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Thirunagari Venkateshwara Swamy

[email protected]