Sudhanshu Rai, an actor-filmmaker, is also a professional storyteller and entrepreneur. The actor, mainly known for Chaipatti, Detective Boomrah and Chintaa Mani, has been dabbling with storytelling even before making his debut on celluloid. While Sudhanshu already has more than 200 stories to his credit, his storytelling show on an FM Radio channel also gained much popularity nearly two years back.
“Storytelling is essentially the foundation of my career as an actor and a filmmaker. If we look at it, storytelling and stories are at the core of filmmaking. The audience watches a film to experience and live a story, and its different characters, and if that falters, no marketing or investment can save the day for an actor or filmmaker. It is my instinct and experience as a storyteller that helps me make the right moves as a filmmaker, and as an actor,” says Sudhanshu.
The storyteller-turned-actor further adds that the story is the hero of all his films and shows. He says, “Our upcoming feature film may have an interesting star cast with the likes of Hiten Tejwani and Sourabh Raaj Jain among others, and representation of India’s heartland in all ways possible, but we are sure that it is the overall storytelling that would captivate the interest of the audience. After watching the film, we expect the audience to go back with a story that they had never heard before.”
Interestingly, it is not just films and shows that Sudhanshu plans to entertain the audience with, for he is also gaining popularity of late for his LIVE storytelling shows. “These shows are more like a theatre, or concert, where the storytelling experience is enhanced with the help of orchestrated background score, ambient lighting and meticulous voice modulation. We can vouch for the fact that it is unlike any other popular form of entertainment in feel. For example, when it’s a forest in other forms, viewer’s imagination and senses are confined to the visuals on screen, whereas when a storyteller describes one, it might be different for each member of the audience according to their imagination or perception. That is how powerful a LIVE storytelling show is.”
Ranked among the most renowned storytellers in India, the actor further adds that such LIVE storytelling shows are widely being incorporated as an effective employee engagement activity for corporate circle, and even schools and colleges must include the same for holistic development of students. For the unversed, the storyteller-actor is also the founder of a strategic communication firm.
Sudhanshu’s upcoming Hindi feature film is slated for release shortly, and is expected to be India’s first ever sci-fi thriller based in the country’s heartland. The film is being directed by Chintaa Mani fame Puneet Sharma and the cast includes Sudhanshu Rai, Sourabh Raaj Jain, Hiten Tejwani, Manisha Sharma, Deepak Wadhwa, Sidharth Banerjee and Shobhit Sujay, among others.