Vice Chancellor

Prof. B. Ananthakrishnan

B Ananthakrishnan was at Department of Theatre Arts, Sarojini Naidu School of Arts & Communication, University of Hyderabad Professor, Dean (Student Affairs) and Head of the Department.

Hailing from Sooranad, Kollam, Kerala, Ananthakrishnan has obtained his MA in Drama and Theatre Arts from Pondicherry University and Ph.D. in contemporary Malayalam theatre from the University of Madras. He was a researcher in Performance and Folklore Studies at St. Xavier’s College, Palayamkottai, Thirunelveli, and at the University of Calicut, Kerala from 1991 to 2000. Later in 2000, he joined Sarojini Naidu School of Arts and Communication, University of Hyderabad as Associate Professor and as Professor in 2004.

He has been awarded Erasmus Mundus Fellowship (2014) to carry out research on ‘Dramaturgy in Transnational Context’ at University of Amsterdam, Netherlands. From 2015 to 2017 he was Fellow at Freie University, Berlin on research project ‘Nationalism, Modernity and Knowledge Production: Shaping the Terrain of Modern Theatre in Postcolonial India’

Specialized in Indian performance studies, he has published several articles on theatre and performance studies in prestigious national and international journals such as Theatre India (National School of Drama), Theatre Research International (Cambridge University Press), Studies in Theatre and Performance (Routledge). In addition, he has been contributing to different anthologies and encyclopaedia such as the Encyclopaedia of Asian Theatre.

He was the founder General Secretary (2004-2013) of the Indian Society for Theatre Research (ISTR) and Executive Committee Member of International Federation for Theatre Research (IFTR) from 2009 to 2013 and 2015 to 2018.

Prof. B Ananthakrishnan has joined as the Vice Chancellor of Kerala Kalamandalam on October 27, 2023.