The Story
OrganizerThe India Habitat Centre opened in 1993 as a multipurpose institution designed to bring together organisations and individuals working in habitat and environment-related areas. When its programmes department was established in 1997, it inherited a venue of considerable technical quality — the Stein Auditorium, named after the IHC's architect Joseph Allen Stein — and a mandate to use it meaningfully.
Vidyun Singh, who has led IHC's cultural programming since that first year, developed what became the IHC Theatre Festival as the cornerstone of the annual calendar. The 'Play a Day' format was a curatorial position as much as a structural one: rather than concentrating on a single genre or geography or theatrical register, the festival would offer a cross-section of what was happening in Indian theatre at the moment of each edition. Classical forms alongside experimental work, Manipuri movement theatre alongside Marathi-language adaptations of canonical plays, established companies alongside younger practitioners.
Over more than two decades, the IHC Theatre Festival has become one of the most reliable annual events in Delhi's performing arts calendar. The Stein Auditorium's technical specifications — it is one of the few Indian venues equipped with Digital Cinema Projection and an Atmos sound system, and one of a small number still maintaining 35mm projection — give the festival a technical infrastructure that most Delhi venues cannot match. Monthly NTLive screenings, weekend theatre, and dramatised readings run throughout the year as supporting programming.
The 2024 edition marked Akvarious Productions' 80th production — This Time, exploring themes of time and nostalgia — among a programme that also included Aboriginal Cry, Victor Thoudam's non-verbal movement work from Manipur exploring indigenous relationships with land, ritual, and culture. The 2025 edition opened with Mehroon, a Hindustani-language production directed by Amitesh Grover, and ran through to 28 September.
The IHC Theatre Festival operates at a specific and valuable point in Delhi's cultural ecology: it is neither a fringe festival nor a prestigious showcase, but a credible curatorial programme that takes both theatre-making and theatre-going seriously. In a city with many cultural events but relatively few events that function as genuine platforms for the full range of Indian theatrical practice — regional language productions, experimental work, lesser-known companies from states outside the metropolitan cluster — the IHC Theatre Festival has provided consistent access.
Vidyun Singh's curation has over the years brought to Delhi work from companies and practitioners in Manipur, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Pune, Mumbai, Chennai, Kerala, and Bengaluru that would not otherwise find a Delhi audience. The deliberately affordable ticket pricing (Rs. 200–500) also reflects an institutional commitment to keeping the festival accessible rather than positioning it as a prestige event for a narrow cultural elite.
Delhi has few events that consistently bring theatre from across India's linguistic and regional spectrum to a single stage. The IHC Theatre Festival has done this annually for nearly three decades, making it an important part of the connective tissue of Indian theatrical culture.
Nearly three decades of annual pan-Indian theatre curation in Delhi. Has brought Manipuri, Marathi, Hindi, Malayalam, Bengali, and other language theatre to Delhi audiences, with consistent accessible pricing.
