Mohana's troupe Male support cast S. Rama Rao, M. K. Moorthy, Kallapart Natarajan, Balasundaram,T. N. Sivathanu, Chandranbabu, S. R. Dhasarathan,S. V. Rajagopal, Siva Sooriyan, and A. M. Maruthappa. Production Development Thillana Mohanambal was a novel written by Kothamangalam Subbu under the pseudonym "Kalaimani". It was serialised in the Tamil magazine Ananda Vikatan in 1957–58. The story portrayed the relationship between Mohanambal, a celebrated dancer, and Shanmugasundaram, a nadaswaram musician. The illustrations for the novel were done by sketch artist and cartoonist, Gopulu. S. S. Vasan, who held the rights to the book, twice refused to allow director A. P. Nagarajan to make a film adaptation of it because Vasan wanted to produce a film adaptation himself under his banner Gemini Studios. When Nagarajan approached him for the third time, Vasan gave him the rights without any consideration. Nagarajan paid Vasan (about US$3,300 in 1968), but also went to visit Subbu with an additional (about US$1,300 in 1968). Subbu declined the money, saying that Vasan had forwarded him the money Nagarajan had paid earlier. Nagarajan's version of the film had a few creative differences from the novel; one of the significant ones was where the film ended with Mohana and Shanmugasundaram's marriage while the novel, in contrast, had a tragic ending. Nagarajan produced the film under his production company, Sri Vijayalakshmi Pictures. K. S. Prasad was in charge of the film's cinematography, M. N. Rajan and T. R. Natarajan jointly handled the editing, and Ganga was the film's art director. R. Rangasamy was lead actor Sivaji Ganesan's make-up artist. Casting Padmini was cast as Mohanambal, the title character. A younger artist was suggested instead of Padmini for the role, but Nagarajan refused to replace her. Ganesan attended Carnatic music concerts, and consulted Carnatic musicians in preparation for his role. T. S. Balaiah portrayed Muthurakku, the Thavil player. Tiruvidaimarudur Venkatesan played the instrument thavil off-screen for Balaiah. Balaiah had additional training for playing the instrument. Madurai T. Srinivasan played the Mridangam off-screen for the song "Maraindhirundhe Paarkum". A. V. M. Rajan portrayed Thangarathnam, the second nadaswaram player in Sundaram's troupe. According to playwright Crazy Mohan, Gopulu's caricature of the character Vaithi in Subbu's novel was similar to Nagesh, who portrayed Vaithi in the film. Nagesh in an interview to Kalki in 2004 revealed that Kothamangalam Subbu initially created the character of Vaidhi with himself in mind. Manorama played the wildly expressive, loud-talking