World Theatre Day

March 27th is annually celebrated as World Theatre Day, an international tribute to the art of theatre, which is observed around the world by performances and events held in honor of the day.

While Global Arts Corps joins our international colleagues in marking the occasion, we have received sobering news from the Arterial Africa Network that a public celebration of World Theatre Day in Tunisia ended in violence, when a crowd of theatre artists and supporters, who had gathered publicly to celebrate the event, were physically attacked by a group of fundamentalists. The police present on the scene did not intervene.

When we see freedoms being violated as blatantly as they have been in this incident, this is something we must fight against. However, as Global Arts Corps Artistic Director Michael Lessac put it in an email this morning, “It is also something that should empower us with the confidence that we can be effective when speaking to power…or else they wouldn’t try to destroy the possibility.”

Today, on World Theatre Day 2012, Global Arts Corps celebrates the power of theatre to spark dialogue and change, and the efforts of our colleagues around the world who join us in this work.