- John de Silva
John de Silva (1857–1922) was an influential
Sri Lanka nplaywright .Life and career
Early life
de Silva was born on
January 13 ,1857 inKotte . He worked as a teacher and a lawyer before entering theater. His first drama "Parabhava Natakaya" was a satire on theupper class .cite web|url=http://sundaytimes.lk/070121/FunDay/heritage.html|title=The big name in Sinhala theatre|accessdate=2007-07-18|date=2007|publisher=Sunday Times]Playwright
He subsequently wrote and produced several
historical andreligious plays drawing from nurti and nadagam traditions. These include "Siri Sangabo" (1903), "Sri Vickrama Rajasinghe" (1906), "Devanampiya Tissa" (1914), "Vihara Maha Devi" (1916) and "Dutugemunu". He also scripted "Ramayana", "Sakuntala", "Vessanatara", "Uttara Ramacharitaya", "Ratnavali" and "Nagananda".de Silva staged his early plays at the Public Hall (later the site of Empire Cinema) with the Sinhala Arya Subodha Natya society. He later formed the Vijaya Ranga society and staged his plays at the Gintupitiya Theatre. de Silva died on
January 28 ,1922 .Legacy
In an acknowledgment of de Silva's contributions, the Sri Lankan government constructed the John de Silva Memorial Theatre at Ananda Cumaraswamy Mawatha in
Colombo . Acommemorative stamp was also issued onJanuary 31 ,1987 . In 2000 the Sinhala pop groupBathiya and Santhush remade the title song from "Siri Sangabo" as a pop song.References
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