When Indhu Rubasingham brought Shabana Azmi to the National Theatre stage in 2000 for Tanika Gupta’s play “The Waiting Room,” the institution was caught off guard.
“At that time, people at the National didn’t know who Shabana Azmi was,” Rubasingham recalls. “They were naive to it.” What followed – queues around the block from Asian audiences eager to see one of India’s most revered actors – left a lasting impression on the director, and on the theater itself.
“That’s what I love about this theater,” Rubasingham says. “You can put people on this stage and that means something to different communities. It is like a beacon, and it opens its doors for different audiences depending on what you put on the stage.”
A quarter-century on, Rubasingham – who was awarded a Member of the British Empire honor for her services to theater – is now the National’s director and co-chief executive, the first woman and first person of color to hold the role, and India is firmly in her sights. Before taking the top job in spring 2025, she spent more than a decade as artistic director of the Kiln Theatre in north London, where she championed unheard voices and oversaw a major capital redevelopment that saw the venue reborn from the Tricycle Theatre. Speaking to Variety ahead of this week’s announcement of “The Jungle Book,” which she is directing for the Olivier stage this winter, Rubasingham spoke expansively about her ambitions to deepen the institution’s ties with the subcontinent: artistically, educationally and digitally.
“It’s a no-brainer for me,” she says. “We have a large Indian subcontinent diaspora in this country, so if we’re speaking locally, we’re also speaking internationally. And it’s our largest democracy. It’s really important to be in dialog with so many different parts of the world.”
Her own roots make that dialog personal. Born in Sheffield to Tamil parents who came to the U.K. in the 1960s and 70s, Rubasingham has maintained a thread connecting her work to the subcontinent throughout her career. That thread runs directly through “The Jungle Book.” Playwright Anupama Chandrasekhar, a long-time collaborator and close friend, brought the project to her – and one of the cast members carries her own piece of that shared history.
Ayesha Dharker, who appears in the production, made her London stage debut with Rubasingham in 2001, playing Sita in a production of Indian epic “Ramayana.” The connection came through Azmi herself. “Shabana Azmi introduced me to Ayesha,” Rubasingham says. “She did her first theater show in London with me.” The two have worked together multiple times since.
On the prospect of bringing Bollywood talent more broadly to the NT, Rubasingham is unambiguous. “I’m passionate about trying to work with Bollywood actors who might want to do theater. We’re absolutely exploring that, and I would love it.”
The Kipling adaptation, which relocates the story to the mangroves of the Sundarbans, marks a new creative frontier for Rubasingham in another sense entirely: she has never worked with puppets before. Lume’s Nick Barnes and Finn Caldwell, who also serves as movement director, are handling that dimension of the production. “I’m finding it really thrilling,” she says, “because working with puppets is bringing out the child in me – the childlike wonder. You’re forced to go into the imagination. I want to believe that these sticks and this cardboard is an animated animal. And I’m so cynical and jaded and so to be taken into this world – I think if we can get it right, it could be very thrilling.”
The production holds personal resonance. “‘The Jungle Book’ is the first film I have a memory of going to see in the cinema,” she says. “I remember being petrified when Shere Khan comes across the screen – hiding under the chair.” Hiran Abeysekera, who won the Olivier Award for best actor in 2022 for “Life of Pi,” plays Mowgli, with Chandrasekhar’s script grounded by a creative team that includes composer Fernando Velázquez – “it’s not a musical,” Rubasingham is quick to clarify – and designer Rajha Shakiry, who also worked on Chandrasekhar’s “The Father and the Assassin.” Lighting is by Oliver Fenwick.
The National’s educational partnership with Mumbai’s National Centre for the Performing Arts through its NT Connections program has, Rubasingham says, confirmed what she already knew about the depth of talent on the subcontinent. “India has always had an incredible cultural scene and extraordinary talent. There’s a thirst.” What she wants to build on is access – not just for audiences but for aspiring practitioners. “I’m in theater because of an opportunity through school,” she says. “I want that access to be available to as many people as possible. We’re nurturing future audiences and encouraging the pipeline.”
Digital is central to that ambition. NT Collection and NT Live, she argues, have transformational potential in India, where cinema-going culture is deeply embedded. “Even though it’s not the same as the live experience, it democratizes access. It allows this form to be in school rooms, in living rooms, in cinemas around the world.” She suspects demand in the subcontinent could exceed even the U.K.’s robust appetite for NT Live screenings. “My gut instinct – and this is not proven – is that the appetite would probably be even bigger there. They love culture, they love the arts, they love stories. It’s an incredibly rich storytelling culture, and one of the biggest cinema-going audiences in the world. That whole combination feels rich to develop and engage with.”
“The Jungle Book” runs at the National Theatre’s Olivier stage from Nov. 13, 2026 to Feb. 6, 2027.
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