India to host Theatre Olympics 2018

India will host the greatest carnival of theatre in the world -- Theatre Olympics -- for the first time from February 17 to April 8 next year.

The 8th edition of the Theatre Olympics will be held simultaneously in 15 cities across India with the opening and closing ceremonies scheduled in New Delhi and Mumbai respectively.

Addressing a press conference here on Wednesday, India's Culture and Tourism Minister Mahesh Sharma said there will be 500 plays and 700 ambience performances from across the world. Activities like exhibitions, seminars, symposia, interactive discussions and workshops with well-known academicians, authors, actors, designers and directors will also be held, he said adding luminaries of world theatre will take part in the Olympics.

Established in 1993, the Theatre Olympics is the foremost international theatre festival, presenting the finest productions of well-known theatre practitioners from around the world.

The Theatre Olympics, being organised by National School of Drama under the aegis of Ministry of Culture, will feature maximum number of Indian and international theatre groups and eminent theatre personalities along with their performances.  

The Theatre Olympics was established in 1993 in Delphi, Greece, as the first international theatre festival. With the tagline 'Crossing Millennia', this is an initiative to connect the cultural past with the present and future, bringing the richness and diversity of theatre heritage to the experiments and research of contemporary theatre.

The first country to host the Theatre Olympics was Greece in 1995. Japan hosted the second edition in Shizuoka in 1999, followed by Russia in 2001. In 2006 the Olympics were held in Istanbul, Turkey, and four years later, in Seoul, South Korea. China hosted them in Beijing in 2014 and in 2016 the 7th Theatre Olympics were held in Wroclaw, Poland.