California Arts Association

CalAA-California Arts Association is a non-profit organization founded in 2002 by San Francisco Bay Area drama enthusiasts with a mission to produce, present and preserve creative performing arts. It aims at promoting experimentation while maintaining high quality in presenting intelligent entertainment.

Inspired by the idea of providing platform for ‘Surya Pahilelaa Maanoos’ (A Man Who Saw the Sun), a teleplay produced in 2002 by Abhay Patil (a CalAA founder member), CalAA was formed to produce, present and preserve such creative, innovative activities and programs.  The teleplay was well received raising hopes about archival of quality productions like ‘Surya’ in the years to come.  CalAA followed this with archival of another landmark play ‘Anand Owaree’ in 2004, a documentary on world-renowned playwright Vijay Tendulkar titled ‘Tendulkar and Violence – Then and Now’ in 2005 and providing partial funding for documentary projects on playwrights Mahesh Elkunchwar and Satish Alekar and Dnyaanapeeth Award Winner author Bhalachandra Nemade.

CalAA is a ‘not-for-profit’ organization, which financially supports itself through net proceeds from its events. The actors and actresses, directors, producers, and all other talent come from the local volunteers who donate their time for CalAA. CalAA has major events planned around the year covering Dramas, One-Act Plays, Intimate Theater productions under “Sameep”, Audiobooks under “CalAAudioscope”, Workshops, Seminars and experimental programs under “CalAAnand” and invited plays and music programs from professional and parallel theater groups and music troupes from India. In the past, CalAA has also presented Music and Dance programs, Video Screening of unique Movies and Teleplays, Short Film Festival and Competition, West Coast One-Act Play Competition and a Weekly TV Show “Mood India”.