World Theatre Day isn’t about creating a global theatre experience. It’s about celebrating the local theatre experience globally. World Theatre Day is an acknowledgement that we are all doing this thing that we love.

And the internet allows us to share those local celebrations and revel in the fact that we’re not alone in our pursuit, and that no matter how many times they try to prove it to us mathematically, theatre is not dead.

Thanks, Travis.

Read the entire post here.

Here are a few examples of what’s happening:

Pi Theatre

Join us for the World Theatre Day matinée of Bashir Lazhar on March 8. Tickets are only $18.

Pacific Theatre

Please join us in celebrating World Theatre Day, 2009! World Theatre Day is celebrated every year on March 27, and is sponsored by The International Theatre Institute.*

BUY A REGULAR TICKET TO A TIME TO DANCE AT PACIFIC THEATRE FOR FRIDAY MARCH 27, 8pm AND RECEIVE A 2nd TICKET ABSOLUTELY FREE!

As more local companies announce their plans, I’ll be updating this post.
If you and your company have plans that you’d like to see posted on the official World Theatre Day blog, please send an e-mail to findbex(at)gmail(dot)com or dawson(dot)lois(at)gmail(dot)com.

The State government will organise drama competitions in all districts in the State on April 16 on the occasion of ‘Prapancha Nataka Dinotsavam’ (World Theatre Day).

They may have a different date for World Theatre Day, but we are glad to see that they are celebrating!

The four available World Theatre Day e-cards

Looking for a quick & simple way to celebrate World Theatre Day or to let your friends know about it?  Check out these e-cards.

Coleman has teamed up with the Next Stage blog to throw a World Theatre Day party. “Everyone’s invited,” she exclaims. To kick it off, they have created a new blog for people to exchange ideas about how to mark the day.

This is all great in theory, but there does seem to be something paradoxical about the idea of a World Theatre Day. After all, it is true that great art should be able to reach across cultural and geographical divides. But theatre, as a live and communal event, is something that cannot easily be separated from the location in which it takes place. As such, it is surely impossible to create any kind of meaningful theatrical experience which can be shared by people around the world. But maybe we should just wait until 27 March and see what happens.

To read the whole article, click here.

27th March 2009

Augusto Boal

All human societies are “spectacular” in their daily life and produce “spectacles” at special moments. They are “spectacular” as a form of social organization and produce “spectacles” like the one you have come to see.

Even if one is unaware of it, human relationships are structured in a theatrical way. The use of space, body language, choice of words and voice modulation, the confrontation of ideas and passions, everything that we demonstrate on the stage, we live in our lives. We are theatre!

Weddings and funerals are “spectacles”, but so, also, are daily rituals so familiar that we are not conscious of this. Occasions of pomp and circumstance, but also the morning coffee, the exchanged good-mornings, timid love and storms of passion, a senate session or a diplomatic meeting – all is theatre.

One of the main functions of our art is to make people sensitive to the “spectacles” of daily life in which the actors are their own spectators, performances in which the stage and the stalls coincide. We are all artists. By doing theatre, we learn to see what is obvious but what we usually can’t see because we are only used to looking at it. What is familiar to us becomes unseen: doing theatre throws light on the stage of daily life.

Last September, we were surprised by a theatrical revelation: we, who thought that we were living in a safe world, despite wars, genocide, slaughter and torture which certainly exist, but far from us in remote and wild places. We, who were living in security with our money invested in some respectable bank or in some honest trader’s hands in the stock exchange were told that this money did not exist, that it was virtual, a fictitious invention by some economists who were not fictitious at all and neither reliable nor respectable. Everything was just bad theatre, a dark plot in which a few people won a lot and many people lost all. Some politicians from rich countries held secret meetings in which they found some magic solutions. And we, the victims of their decisions, have remained spectators in the last row of the balcony.

Twenty years ago, I staged Racine’s Phèdre in Rio de Janeiro. The stage setting was poor: cow skins on the ground, bamboos around. Before each presentation, I used to say to my actors: “The fiction we created day by day is over. When you cross those bamboos, none of you will have the right to lie. Theatre is the Hidden Truth”.

When we look beyond appearances, we see oppressors and oppressed people, in all societies, ethnic groups, genders, social classes and casts; we see an unfair and cruel world. We have to create another world because we know it is possible. But it is up to us to build this other world with our hands and by acting on the stage and in our own life.

Participate in the “spectacle” which is about to begin and once you are back home, with your friends act your own plays and look at what you were never able to see: that which is obvious. Theatre is not just an event; it is a way of life!

We are all actors: being a citizen is not living in society, it is changing it.

Augusto Boal

Click here to see the list of past WTD International Address writers.

Boal is the inventor of Forum Theatre and Theatre for the Oppressed, and was recently nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize. Read his entire biography here.

The ITI asks that the speech be read in theatres all over the world, prior to curtain, on March 27. We are still waiting for the 2009 speech to be released, but in the mean time, here is last year’s incredibly inspirational one:

World Theatre Day, 27 March 2008

International Message by Robert Lepage

There are a number of hypotheses on the origins of theatre but the one I find the most thought-provoking takes the form of a fable:

One night, at the dawn of time, a group of men were gathered together in a quarry to warm themselves around a fire and tell stories.   All of a sudden, one of them had the idea to stand up and use his shadow to illustrate his tale.  Using the light from the flames he made characters appear, larger than life, on the walls of the quarry.  Amazed, the others recognized in turn the strong and the weak, the oppressor and the oppressed, the god and the mortal.

Nowadays, the light of projectors has replaced the original bonfire, and stage machinery, the walls of the quarry. And with all due deference to certain purists, this fable reminds us that technology is at the very beginnings of theatre and that it should not be perceived as a threat but as a uniting element.

The survival of the art of theatre depends on its capacity to reinvent itself by embracing new tools and new languages.  For how could the theatre continue to bear witness to the great issues of its epoch and promote understanding between peoples without having, itself, a spirit of openness? How could it pride itself on offering solutions to the problems of intolerance, exclusion and racism if, in its own practice, it resisted any fusion and integration ?

In order to represent the world in all its complexity, the artist must bring forth new forms and ideas, and trust in the intelligence of the spectator, who is capable of distinguishing the silhouette of humanity within this perpetual play of light and shadow.

It is true that by playing too much with fire, we take a risk, but we also take a chance: we might get burned, but we might also amaze and enlighten.

Robert Lepage

Quebec,  17th February 2008

(Translated from the original French)

Journée mondiale du Théâtre, 27 mars 2008

Message International par Robert Lepage

Il existe plusieurs hypothèses sur les origines du théâtre, mais celle qui m’interpelle le plus a la forme d’une fable :

Une nuit, dans des temps immémoriaux, un groupe d’hommes s’étaient rassemblés dans une carrière pour se réchauffer autour d’un feu et se raconter des histoires. Quand tout à coup, l’un d’eux eut l’idée de se lever et d’utiliser son ombre pour illustrer son récit. En s’aidant de la lumière des flammes, il fit apparaître sur les murs de la carrière des personnages plus grands que nature. Les autres, éblouis, y reconnurent tour à tour le fort et le faible, l’oppresseur et l’oppressé, le dieu et le mortel.

De nos jours, la lumière des projecteurs a remplacé le feu de joie initial et la machinerie de scène, les murs de la carrière. Et n’en déplaise à certains puristes, cette fable nous rappelle que la technologie est à l’origine même du théâtre et qu’elle ne doit pas être perçue comme une menace, mais comme un élément rassembleur.

La survie de l’art théâtral dépend de sa capacité à se réinventer en intégrant de nouveaux outils et de nouveaux langages. Sinon, comment le théâtre pourrait-il continuer d’être le témoin des grands enjeux de son époque et promouvoir l’entente entre les peuples, s’il ne faisait pas lui-même preuve d’ouverture? Comment pourrait-il se targuer d’offrir des solutions aux problèmes d’intolérance, d’exclusion et de racisme, si, dans sa pratique même, il se refusait à tout métissage et à toute intégration?

Pour représenter le monde dans toute sa complexité, l’artiste doit proposer des formes et des idées nouvelles et faire confiance à l’intelligence du spectateur capable, lui, de distinguer la silhouette de l’humanité dans ce perpétuel jeu d’ombre et de lumière.

Il est vrai qu’à trop jouer avec le feu, l’homme prend le risque de se brûler, mais il prend également la chance d’éblouir et d’illuminer.

Robert Lepage

Québec, le 17 février 2008

This speech has been translated into many languages. You can see its translations here.

For those of you who are completely new to World Theatre Day, one thing that is sacrosanct is the reading of the World Theatre Day address prior to curtain in your theatre on March 27. Each year, the ITI chooses one person to write an essay on what theatre means to them, and last year’s, I’m proud to say, was Canadian Robert LePage (I’ve seen his work–he is incredible).  This speech will be published on the ITI website, and last year,  it came out on February 17, so hopefully we will see it this week.

Here in Vancouver, we are into our fifth year of celebrating World Theatre Day on March 27. Every year, there are different events, but there are three that always happen.

1. Panel discussion with well-known theatre artists during the week of WTD at the Vancouver Public Library. This talk is called Backstage with Bernard (as it is hosted by a well-loved Vancouver actor named Bernard Cuffling), and this year takes place on March 22.

2. My First Time… Each year, the GVPTA rounds up volunteers from its member companies to put on a one-night-only production of stories, songs and scenes. Last year it was the shared experience of your first onstage love scene, this year, it’s My First Time… The Tour. This show takes place March 29 at he Waterfront Theatre on Granville Island.

3. Discounted Theatre Tickets. Many of the companies in the GVPTA that have shows running on March 27 will offer discounts on tickets for that night.

For an entire list of what went down on WTD08, please click here.

And now, a branistorm from Chicago. From the Blog Theatre for the Future, by Nick Keenan:

1)  Create a Flickr photo feed to share images globally.

2) Create central, local and international hubs to direct traffic to all the world”s content.

3) Connect, involve and support your existing international collaborators.

4) Connect your local audience with the global event.
Maybe you arrange a backstage tour. You bring a photographer or videographer to capture images of your audience walking through, experiencing where the magic happens. Those images get uploaded during the show, and the global community responds to the images. After your show, as your audience leaves the theater, you invite them to see what the global community has said about your pictures, your show, your moments. Maybe some audience members from your sister company are ready to talk on Skype. Maybe your audience can spend some time browsing images of other global events, and making comments of their own. Maybe you present them with a website or the address of an after party where they can continue the experience.

This is just the beginning of what is possible… What is the fastest, simplest way for your theater to connect your audience’s experience and the experience of your work to other audiences across the globe?

Read Nick’s entire post here. (I really love the idea of teaming up with a ‘theatre buddy’ somewhere else in the world.)

I hope that gives you some inspiration. And please continue to write in with your plans and dreams.