One of Mumbai`s famous theatres, the Prithvi Theatre belongs to the Kapoor clan, one of the most influential actor/director families in Bollywood. This theatre is dedicated to the legendary Prithviraj Kapoor, as a great respect to his dream for Indian theatre. Started by Shashi Kapoor (the youngest son of Prithviraj Kapoor) and his wife Jennifer Kendel, since they both shared a passion for theatre, they decided to go ahead and make this dream into a reality.

The Late `s career in Bollywood had spanned more than 40 illustrious years, but his passion for drama and theatre was something very extraordinary and he cherished it forever. In 1927 Prithviraj left Edwards College, Peshawar, to pursue a career as an actor. He came to Bombay and joined the Imperial Studio Company, where he was selected to play the lead in a silent film `Cinema Girl` starring Ermelene, the screen goddess of her time. In 1931 he joined an English actor-manager`s travelling theatre group. In this group, he went ahead to perform many roles.

Keeping this experience as a base, in 1944 he established his own Prithvi Theatres, which was a travelling theatre company. It consisted of about 150 dedicated actors, stagehands, cooks, writers and technicians, performing plays throughout the country. The Prithvi Theatres` maiden production was Kalidasa`s classic "Shakuntala", after which many famous plays were performed all over India and became immensely popular. These plays were written specifically for Prithvi Theatres and Prithviraj played the lead in all the productions. The Prithvi Theatres was one of the first professionals Hindi theatre groups with a permanent staff, which worked on actively developing and nurturing a modern theatre movement.

Around this time Prithviraj felt the need for a theatre space, which would provide amateur theatre groups with professional facilities. With this in mind he leased out a plot of land in Juhu, Bombay with the hope of some day building a theatre on it. Unfortunately before his dream could be pursued, he succumbed to death leaving behind a rich cultural legacy and a vision for Indian theatre. After the demise of Prithviraj Kapoor, Shashi Kapoor and Jennifer Kapoor decided to buy the land and set up a Trust in Shri Prithviraj`s memory with the intention of building a theatre to promote the performing arts.

They realized, the great need for a unique theatre space, in order to rediscover the intimate actor-audience relationship. They also built a café attached to the theatre, which would be a meeting place for artists and art lovers. With a sincere dedication and realising Prithviraj`s dream, Shashi & Jennifer Kapoor inaugurated the Prithvi Theatre on the 5th of November, 1978. G.P. Deshpande inaugurated The Prithvi Theatre with the drama "Majma`s Udhwashth Dharamshala". Currently, Prithvi Theatre hosts over 400 performances a year, by over 40 groups.

Dedicated to encouraging professional theatre, Prithvi Theatre has made a conscious decision to keep its theatre rent down. Since that time, the Prithvi Theatre has endeavored to act as a catalyst to nurture and develop Indian theatre over the years. Prithvi has presented a variety of different events and programmes like the famous Prithvi Festival, most of which have become part of the regular calendar of events of the Mumbai audience.

Prithvi Festival
The first Prithvi Festival in 1983 was held to celebrate 5 years of successful growth in theatre groups, as well as the development of an audience. Since then the Prithvi Festivals have been conducted annually and it includes theatre groups; featuring local Bombay groups, or national or international in scope, with various themes. They have attempted to encourage quality and originality in local various Bombay groups and also to bring some of the best and most interesting of Indian and world theatre to Bombay in the interests of exposure. The Prithvi Theatre Festival has reached out to audiences beyond Mumbai also, touring its 1995 and 1997 Festivals to New Delhi and its 2000 festival to Pune.