World Theatre Day, March 27

from Groundling, Kate Wilson, published March 7:




Dear Theatre Colleagues …

This is a modified version of an email I sent through to some of my theatre colleagues this morning. It’s part of my strategy to get the word out about World Theatre Day celebrated this year on March 27.

As one of the international facilitators for World Theatre Day 2009, I’m writing to ask you, as an Artistic Director, producer, company marketing, general manager, or theatre advocate to consider joining in the global celebrations on Friday March 27th - 3 week from today as I write. It’s not hard … in fact we’re making it very easy for theatre companies around the world to share our love of theatre on this one day.

WTD has been celebrated - if lightly - as part of the International Theatre Institute (itself a part of UNESCO) since its inception in 1948. Never heard of it? Not surprising really; it’s been a local celebration internationally, and news of what happened on the day has tended not to cross borders. This year it’s different. Now we have the internet.

You can get all the information on ideas for the day, who’s who, links and so on at the official World Theatre Day Blog

One of the facilitators in the US has written what I think sums up the reason for us all joining in.
Here’s Travis Bedard, the Artistic Director of Cambiare Productions in Austin Texas:

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.

That’s it … an opportunity to celebrate, to share, to advocate, and to profile your group internationally.

We’d love you to mark the occasion in any way you wish, and then to share those individual and diverse celebrations with the rest of the world via the web. We’ll be using the WTD09 Tumblog site as a ’stream’ to hold your contributions. We’ll be providing the email address with details on how to add images, videos, sound files … whatever … in the week leading up to March 27. Again … easy.

This year the World Theatre Day address has been written by Augusto Boal. Consider sharing it by putting it on your company blog, or read it out on WTD itself at curtain time (if you have a show on that day) … indeed, this has been the tradition for many years.

I hope you’ll consider joining those other many, many of your colleagues from around the world on March 27th. Let us know via the WTD09 blog, on Twitter (please tag your message #WTD09) or if you’d prefer, email directly to me what your plans are. I’ll make sure your message gets out there.

And in the spirit of the day … and because it’s so easy to do so …. please cut and paste, link or forward this on to other theatre colleagues in your network.

With warmest wishes

Kate