First stage production - Keechaka Vadha: The puppet team of the Vanarasa family had become very popular. Their shows became a part of any important ceremony either in village festivals or ceremonies in big families of rich landlords. From a village near Jammalamadugu, there came a call to enact a puppet show during a wedding ceremony in a rich Reddy landlord's house. The village was Sorugu, which is now called Surabhi, and the landlords were Allapureddy Chennareddy and Kovvuru Ramireddy(the former's daughter is given to the latter's son) who were known in the taluq for their munificence and were known patrons of puppet shows. Here, Vanarasa Govindarao found a good opportunity to convert the puppet show 'Keechaka Vadha - A tale from the epic Maha Bharatha' to a theatrical performance. Thats the starting point. With the huge success of the show, the puppetry family cahnged into a classical theatrical family. As the early plays of the group were staged at Surabhi village and since most of the artists lived in the same area, the group came to be known as Surabhi.
Introducing women on the stage: The contribution of Surabhi community to the promotion of Telugu theatre and culture is price less. It was this group that brought women to the stage fro the first time (in 1880's the contemporary drama groups used to come up with the male artists performing female roles since the restrictions of the society didn't allow women to explore on stage. Since the Surabhi is a family system, women were motivated to perform the women roles on their own stage). It also popularised gramphone records, contributed actors to film, and took theatre beyond the geographical boundaries of andhra Pradesh.
