[3][4][5] As a theatre director, she has directed over 55 plays in Hindi, including notable plays like, Aadhe Adhure (Mohan Rakesh), Khamosh, Adalat Jari Hai (Vijay Tendulkar adaptation of 1956 short-story, 'Die Panne' (Traps) by Friedrich Dürrenmatt), Ashadh Ka Ek Din (Mohan Rakesh), Tughlaq and Hayavadana (both by Girish Karnad), Mahabhoj (Mannu Bhandari) (1982), King Lear, Himmat Mai (Mother Courage), Nati Binodini (2006) and Begum Barve (Satish Alekar), many of which are known to have set trends in Indian theatre.
It allowed her to do a two-year apprenticeship at the Berliner Ensemble, Weimar German National Theatre, Volksbuehne, and the Deutsches Theater of East Germany.
[3] After returning from Germany, one of her early plays was Teen takke ka swang (1970), in Urdu with Surekha Sikri, based on Brecht's Threepenny Opera, which she co-directed with Fritz Bennewitz for NSD Repertory Company, Delhi.
During this period, she directed important productions of Brecht's The Exception and the Rule in which Punjabi poet Manjit Tiwana, acted along with Anupam Kher and Anita Kanwar, as well as Three Penny Opera.
Her first major production came in 1976, when she did Mohan Rakesh's Adhe Adhure, with NSD Repertory and three actors trained by her father, Surekha Sikri, Uttara Baokar and Manohar Singh, which whom she went to work in several other plays of acclaim, including Himmat Mai (1993) based on Brecht's Mother Courage and her Children, Girish Karnad's Nagamandal, and in Satish Alekar's Begum Barve.
[4] She has also directed television drama, notably Mohan Rakesh's Adhe-adhure, Begum Barve, Manjula Padmanabhan's Lights Out, Char Chaughi, Teen takke ka swang.
[18][19][20] The first ever all-Indian theatre festival, Bharat Rang Mahotsav 1999, opened on 18 March in New Delhi, with staging of Girish Karnad's play Nagamandala, which she directed.