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Name
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Radhika Rao
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Profile
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Radhika Rao is a multilingual theater and improv artist, teaching artist, organizational communications coach, and community facilitator based in San Francisco. Her work moves across scripted performance, Shakespeare, improvisation, education, and communication training. Rao describes her mission as using theater to facilitate dialogue, help people become better communicators, and create more peaceful ways of relating to one another.
Born and raised in India, Rao began doing theater more fully while studying at Lady Shri Ram College in Delhi and later pursued graduate work in theater and education in the United States. Since moving to the Bay Area, she has found a vibrant theater ecosystem where she could perform beyond narrowly defined ethnic roles, especially through Shakespeare, improv, and nontraditional casting. Her Bay Area work includes collaborations with San Francisco Shakespeare Festival, New Conservatory Theatre Center, American Conservatory Theater, Leela Improv, EnActe Arts, and Farah Yasmeen Shaikh/Noorani Dance.
Rao’s practice is rooted in the belief that theater is not only performance, but a way of building voice, confidence, empathy, and connection. She has used theater and improvisation in schools, medical and nursing education, police training, legal and workplace communication, anti-bullying programs, environmental education, and community-based dialogue. As an artist of South Asian origin working across both South Asian and broader Bay Area theater spaces, Rao brings a perspective shaped by Indian mythology, multilingual performance, Shakespeare, improvisation, and the experience of often being the only South Asian artist in a room. Her work expands the story of South Asian theater in the Bay Area by showing how South Asian theater practitioners also contribute across mainstream, educational, community, and experimental performance contexts.
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Position
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Multilingual Theater Artist, Improviser, Teaching Artist, and Communications Coach
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Subject
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South Asian Theater
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Radhika Rao
Radhika Rao