The company does street as well as open-air proscenium performances, and also occasionally organises talks, discussions, workshops, exhibitions, film shows, etc.
Its early plays, though initially designed for the proscenium, were performed on makeshift stages and chaupals in the big and small towns and villages of North India.
Some of its best-known street plays are Hatyare, Samrath ko Nahi Dosh Gosain, Aurat, Raja ka Baja, Apaharan Bhaichare Ka, Halla Bol, Mat Banto Insaan Ko, Sangharsh Karenge Jitenge, Andhera Aaftaab Mangega, Jinhe Yakeen Nahin Tha, Aartanaad, Rahul Boxer, Nahin Qabul, Voh Bol Uthi and Yeh Dil Mange More Guruji.
Street theatre addresses topical events and social phenomenon and takes them straight to peoples’ places of work and residence.
In recognition of his contribution to the street theatre movement and to the growth of a democratic culture, the University of Calcutta in 1989 conferred on Safdar the degree of D.Litt.
Since 1989 Janam has been engaged in both street and proscenium theatre (including Moteram ka Satyagraha, Satyashodhak, Varun ke Bete, Hum Yahin Rahenge, Ek Aurat Hypatia Bhi Thi).
In 1993 it began a bilingual theatre quarterly Nukkad Janam Samvaad and also instituted the Safdar Hashmi Memorial Lecture series.
Among Janam's recent proscenium plays is Aazadi Ne Jab Dastak Di, based on Manini Chatterjee's book Do and Die.
The play used giant masks, video projection, and live music to create a hilarious expose of the US-UK role in Iraq, their ambitions of world conquest, and the people's resistance to it.
In the summer of 2008, Janam produced Ulte Hor Zamaaney Aye, a proscenium play written by Brijesh, with music by Kajal Ghosh and directed by Sudhanva Deshpande.
This was a black comedy about a woman who struggles to get treatment for her husband, who is initially mistaken for a bomb blast victim in a hospital, but dropped like a hot brick when they find out he is actually an industrial worker.
In 1997 Janam constructed an innovative and dismantleable mobile theatre, Safar (acronym for Safdar Rangmanch), to take proscenium plays to working class areas.
Located about 6 km west of Connaught Place is a neighbourhood known as Shadi Khampur, where the group has created a small black box theatre, called Studio Safdar.
The 1989 Hindi film, Salim Langde Pe Mat Ro, directed by Saeed Akhtar Mirza, was dedicated to the memory of Safdar Hashmi.