Hadi Marzban was born in 1944 in the historic city of Sabzevar, located in the Razavi Khorasan Province. This region, known for its rich cultural history and traditional artistic practices, provided the young Marzban with an early exposure to the rhythms of Iranian storytelling—poetry recitations in local gatherings, dramatic taʿziyeh performances during Muharram, and the melodious patterns of Khorasani speech. These cultural forms would, decades later, resurface in his stage aesthetics in subtle but meaningful ways, especially in his sensitivity to dialogue and rhythm.
After finishing high school, he moved to Tehran to pursue higher education. He was accepted into the College of Fine Arts at the University of Tehran, which, by the late 1960s, had become the center of academic theater studies in Iran. The professors included some of Iran’s most influential modernists—masters of European theater theory, Iranian performance traditions, and the growing experimental movement.
