Happy World Theatre Day 2009!

Today is World Theatre Day!  Celebrate by going out tonight to see a show.  Come see DEFIANCE at BRT tonight at 8PM!

Today, Friday, March 27, theatre artists the world over are spending part of their day acknowledging and honoring the larger community of the art form they share in. Designated “World Theatre Day” by the International Theatre Institute, this a marvelous opportunity for us to celebrate together an art form and a way of life that binds us, regardless of borders, language or political differences.

 

Each year a figure outstanding in theatre or a related field is invited to share his or her reflections on theatre and international harmony in what is known as the International Message.  This year’s International Message was written by Augusto Boal, a Brazilian theatre director, writer and activist, and creator of Theatre of the Oppressed, a well-known form of performance-activism used in radical popular education movements.

 

The International message is translated into more than 20 languages, read for tens of thousands of spectators before performances in theatres throughout the world and printed in hundreds of daily newspapers.

 

Colleagues in the audio-visual field lend a fraternal hand, with more than a hundred radio and television stations transmitting the Message to listeners in all corners of the world.

 

World Theatre Day is an occasion for theatre people to celebrate the power of the performing arts to bring people together, it is an opportunity to share with their audiences a certain vision of their art and its capacity to contribute to understanding and peace between peoples.

 

As well as the wide diffusion of the International Message, the central feature of the Day since its inception in 1961 is that it had included numerous events in all corners of the world, ranging from the almost intimate demonstration to the big popular celebration.

 

There are events in honor of World Theatre Day taking place all over the world in Australia, Africa, Canada, Mexico, South America, Russia, India, the Philippines, and all over the United States.

 

To read Augusto Boal’s WTD09 International Message, Click Here

 

So go patronize a local theatre company today and celebrate World Theatre Day!