“We used to go in a big juggernaut called ‘The Traveling Temple,’ doing Harinama and book distribution,” Jaya Krishna recalls. In the early days, the Bhaktivedanta Players traveled as part of the UK’s Hare Krishna Festival program. In 1976 at the age of thirteen, Jaya Krishna got his first role as a monkey facing Kumbhakarna in the Ramayana, and has never left the group since. When the devotees asked us if we would like to be in plays, we jumped at the chance.” We really liked it there and started doing different little services. “The Manor, with its 17 acres, cows, and really nice devotees was a bit of an oasis for us. “My brothers and I used to ride everywhere on our bicycles,” he recalls.

Hailing from a typically pious Gujarati family, he moved from Kenya to the UK in 1969 and began visiting Bhaktivedanta Manor.

Rama, Lakshman Hanuman and the monkey warriors prepare to march onto Lanka One of the most dedicated in this service – the Bhaktivedanta Players’ current writer, producer and director Jaya Krishna Das – was just a child when he started with the group. Devotees were inspired to focus on the service when Srila Prabhupada told Mukunda Goswami that England, with its rich culture of theater, could be culturally “conquered” through drama. Originally starting out under the name “CIT (Caitanya’s Instant Theater)” in the early 1970s, the group became known as the Bhaktivedanta Players in 1976.

The UK’s Bhaktivedanta Players performed the spiritual epic Ramayana to a sold-out crowd of 600 at the historic Watford Palace Theater on November 4 th, as part of its “Diwali at the Palace” event.Īfter over forty years of first-class dramatic performances, the Players, based at Bhaktivedanta Manor, are much loved and in-demand throughout both their local English community, and the ISKCON world.

Krishna conscious play scripts