Yatrik (theatre group)

Yatrik, Delhi's first bi-lingual theatre group was founded in 1964 by Joy Michael, Roshan Seth, Sushma Seth, Nigam Prakash, Kusum Haidar, Rati Bartholomew, Sneih Das and Marcus Murch.^[1][2][3] It nurtured the early careers of many actors in theatre, TV and cinema.

Joy Michael, Sushma Seth, Roshan Seth and a few others had been working together with Tom Noonan (the then Cultural-Attache at United States Information Service, Delhi) in a play, 'Abe Lincoln in Illinois'. Noonan's retirement and the group's reluctance to disband led to the idea of 'Yatrik'. The idea emerged on a train ride from Dehradun to Delhi after a performance. Over the summer of 1963-64, individual members of the group contributed their personal resources, and staged plays in Nainital, Mussoorie, Dehradun earning a profit of Rs. 2000/-. With this, Yatrik was formally launched.^[4][5]

The repertory company, registered in 1964 became the city's first professional theatre group. The group conducted weekend performances at Delhi's Mahadev Road. It has since staged over 300 plays in Hindi, and English, performed in India and internationally.^[5]

Joy Michael served as its Director for 40 years and produced nearly 250 plays.

Other Directors include:

Sabina Mehta Jaitly, Prakash Bhatia, Sunit Tandon, Avijit Dutt^[6]