World Theatre Day 2024

 

[The statements below are from the website of the International Theatre Institute.  ITI, an NGO in formal associate relations with the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, was officially inaugurated during the meeting of its first World Congress in Prague in 1948, organized on the initiative of UNESCO and a group of international theater experts. 

[ITI’s charter objectives are: To promote international exchange of knowledge and practice in the domain of the performing arts; to stimulate creation and increase cooperation among theater people; to increase public awareness of the need to take artistic creation into consideration in the domain of Development; to deepen mutual understanding and contribute to the consolidation of peace and friendship between peoples; to join in the defense of the ideals and aims of UNESCO; and to combat all forms of racism or social and political discrimination.

[To further its goals and especially to spread the idea of theater as a bridge-builder for peace and mutual understanding, in 1961 ITI created World Theatre Day, celebrated annually on 27 March.  Each year the Executive Council of ITI selects a message author and circulates the international address all over the world.  The message is translated into more than 20 languages.

[I’ve published on World Theatre Day several times before on Rick On Theater, and ROTters who are interested should check out the past posts to read earlier messages: “World Theatre Day 2012,” 24 April 2012; “World Theatre Day: 27 March 2022,” 4 April 2022; “World Theatre Day 2023,” 27 March 2023.] 

WORLD THEATRE DAY: INTERNATIONAL MESSAGE 2024
Jon Fosse

Art Is Peace

Every person is unique and yet also like every other person. Our visible, external appearance is different from everyone else’s, of course, that is all well and good, but there is also something inside each and every one of us which belongs to that person alone—which is that person alone. We might call this their spirit, or their soul. Or else we can decide not to label it at all in words, just leave it alone. 

But while we are all unlike one another, we’re alike too. People from every part of the world are fundamentally similar, no matter what language we speak, what skin color we have, what hair color we have.

This may be something of a paradox: that we are completely alike and utterly dissimilar at the same time. Maybe a person is intrinsically paradoxical, in our bridging of body and soul—we encompass both the most earthbound, tangible existence and something that transcends these material, earthbound limits, against what lies deep inside all art.

Art, good art, manages in its wonderful way to combine the utterly unique with the universal. It lets us understand what is different—what is foreign, you might say—as being universal. By doing so, art breaks through the boundaries between languages, geographical regions, countries. It brings together not just everyone’s individual qualities but also, in another sense, the individual characteristics of every group of people, for example of every nation.

Art does this not by levelling differences and making everything the same, but, on the contrary, by showing us what is different from us, what is alien or foreign. All good art contains precisely that: something alien, something we cannot completely understand and yet at the same time do understand, in a way. It contains a mystery, so to speak. Something that fascinates us and thus pushes us beyond our limits and in so doing creates the transcendence that all art must both contain in itself and lead us to.

I know of no better way to bring opposites together. This is the exact reverse approach from that of the violent conflicts we see all too often in the world, which indulge the destructive temptation to annihilate anything foreign, anything unique and different, often by using the most inhuman inventions technology has put at our disposal. There is terrorism in the world. There is war. For people have an animalistic side, too, driven by the instinct to experience the other, the foreign, as a threat to one’s own existence rather than as a fascinating mystery.

This is how uniqueness—the differences we all can see—disappear, leaving behind a collective sameness where anything different is a threat that needs to be eradicated. What is seen from without as a difference, for example in religion or political ideology, becomes something that needs to be defeated and destroyed.

War is the battle against what lies deep inside all of us: something unique. And it is also a battle against art, against what lies deep inside all art.

I have been speaking here about art in general, not about theater or playwriting in particular, but that is because, as I’ve said, all good art, deep down, revolves around the same thing: taking the utterly unique, the utterly specific, and making it universal. Uniting the particular with the universal by means of expressing it artistically: not eliminating its specificity but emphasizing this specificity, letting what is foreign and unfamiliar shine clearly through.

War and art are opposites, just as war and peace are opposites—it’s as simple as that. Art is peace.

Translated by: Damion Searls

Biography of Jon Fosse
Norwegian writer, playwright 

Jon Fosse is a renowned Norwegian writer born in 1959. He is known for his extensive body of work, which includes plays, novels, poetry collections, essays, children’s books, and translations. Fosse’s writing style is characterized by minimalism and emotional depth, making him one of the most performed playwrights in the world. In 2023, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for his innovative plays and prose that give voice to the unsayable.

Fosse’s work has been translated into over fifty languages, with productions presented on over a thousand stages worldwide. His minimalist and introspective plays, often bordering on lyrical prose and poetry, continue the dramatic tradition established by Henrik Ibsen [Norwegian; 1828-1906] in the 19th century. Fosse’s work has been associated with post-dramatic theatre, and his notable novels have been described as post-modernist and avant-garde due to their minimalism, lyricism, and unconventional use of syntax.

[Post-dramatic (or postdramatic, post dramatic) theater is a term coined by German theater scholar Hans-Thies Lehmann (b. 1944) in his book Postdramatic Theatre (1999). It represents a departure from traditional, text-based, and plot-driven drama. Lehmann describes a shift away from the traditional dramatic elements of plot, character, and dialogue to a theater characterized by a focus on the performative and visual aspects rather than a structured narrative. The linear narrative, cause-and-effect relationships, and character development are often fragmented or discarded.

[Post-dramatic theater—which arose in the modern theater in the middle of the 20th century, though examples exist in classic drama—treats the performance as an event rather than a representation. The experience of the audience is crucial, and the boundaries between the stage and the audience may be blurred. Some key characteristics of post-dramatic theater include non-linear and fragmented narratives; emphasis on the live, embodied performance itself; blurring the boundaries between the stage and the audience; and challenging the conventional separation between performer and spectator.]

Fosse gained international acclaim as a dramatist with his play “Nokon kjem til å komme” (1996; “Someone Is Going to Come,” 2002), known for its radical reduction of language and powerful expression of human emotions. Inspired by artists like Samuel Beckett [Irish; 1906-89] and Thomas Bernhard [Austrian; 1931-89], Fosse combines local ties with modernist techniques. His works portray the uncertainties and vulnerabilities of human experiences without nihilistic contempt. In his plays, Fosse often leaves incomplete words or acts, creating a sense of unresolved tension. Themes of uncertainty and anxiety are explored in plays like “Natta syng sine songar” (1998; “Nightsongs,” 2002) and “Dødsvariasjonar” (2002; “Death Variations,” 2004). Fosse’s courage in delving into everyday life’s anxieties has contributed to his widespread recognition.

Fosse’s novels, such as “Morgon og kveld” (2000; “Morning and Evening,” 2015) and “Det er Ales” (2004; “Aliss at the Fire,” 2010), showcase his unique language characterized by pauses, interruptions, negations, and profound questioning. The trilogy “Trilogien” (2016) and the septology “Det andre namnet” (2019; “The Other Name,” 2020) further demonstrate Fosse’s exploration of love, violence, death, and reconciliation.

Fosse’s use of imagery and symbolism is evident in his poetic works, including “Sterk vind” (2021) and his poetry collection “Dikt i samling” (2021). He has also translated works by Georg Trakl [German poet; 1887-1914] and Rainer Maria Rilke [Austrian poet; 1875-1926] into Nynorsk [an official form of written Norwegian].

Overall, Jon Fosse’s works delve into the essnce of the human condition, tackling themes of uncertainty, anxiety, love, and loss. With his unique writing style and profound exploration of everyday situations, he has established himself as a major figure in contemporary literature and theatre.

—From the International Theatre Institute

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WORLD THEATRE DAY: U.S. MESSAGE 2024
Luis Alfaro 

Hello Friends,

I am so happy to be speaking with you from the ancestral lands of the Gabrielino/Tongva Nation, otherwise known as El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora, la Reina de Los Angeles, or as we simply say, Los Angeles.

On this very special occasion, I hope I don’t sound like a crazy optimist when I say that theatre saves lives. I know this because it changed mine.

As an artist who was raised in poverty in a barrio in downtown Los Angeles, I am conscious of a violence that accompanied me in my youth. A way of thinking about my limited choices which were constantly confirmed in mainstream images that distorted my culture and its options.

The message was clear, survival was the objective. For some it meant joining gangs, addiction or learning prison systems. For others, like me, it was the refuge of a public library where I discovered, that I was, what they called, an artist.

Which is to say that exploring and practicing expression was a way of learning what freedom was.

Discovering this freedom in every play I checked out from the library, showed me that language was attached to feelings that lived in bodies that had metaphorical wings, capable of transport.

Words, as I read them carried me far when I was growing up. They were comfort in a harsh world. When I wrote words as a teenager, my restlessness to know more stories, took me on real journeys. To you, and your stories, which, I often find, are my stories. The details are different, but the feelings, the same.

Theatre has an extraordinary power to cross all borders and let us see each other, not just on stage, but in the audience as well.

My parents, with their farmworker history, did not know how to access this world. We simply could not afford it, but they desperately wanted it for me.

I collected cans and bottles. At football soccer games, I sold sandwiches my mother made. I raised enough money to buy tickets to see theatre.

My parents drove me to see the first national tour of Stephen Sondheim’s ‘Pacific Overtures’ starring the legendary Asian American actor, Mako.

Then, they drove me to my first play, the first national tour of Ntozake Shange’s ‘For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf’.

Then, Luis Valdez’s seminal Chicano work, ‘Zoot Suit’, a history of Los Angeles and Mexican Americans. My Story.

They waited in the car across the street from the Mark Taper Forum Theatre at the Music Center of Los Angeles County.

My parents had no clue what I was seeing, but they could see that something was expanding in me.

I began to understand that the world was much bigger than the one I had been given. There was another world out there. I had little idea how it worked, but I could see that even if it was foreign, it was also capable of being me.

Each play, from the Mahabharata [a Hindu epic poem; a film version of Peter Brook’s 9-hour stage version was released in 1989] to Nagamandala [a 1997 Indian drama film by T. S. Nagabharana based on a play by Girish Karnad], were my story too.

I collected more bottles and cans. I sold my mother’s tamales in my neighborhood. I was able to go to New York to see Broadway shows when I was fifteen.

My best friend and I held yard sales until we had enough money to go to London.

Eventually, the theatre paid me! To go to Chicago for my first production. To London for my first residency. To Mexico City to perform in my native language. To Canada to meet Canadian-Latinos telling their own immigrant stories.

A play is an invitation to another world.

I am a Chicano, a politicized Mexican American. I yearn to tell more audiences the stories of my people. For me, these are often hard stories, about the disproportionate poverty and violence we are born into. But they are also love stories.

I have adapted the Greek classics so that you can see that we belong to the world too. Our humanity is not limited to barrios and prisons, regardless of what the dominant culture often portrays us as.

I am – a world artist; I belong to the shared humanity of our stories. We, my people, built civilizations, and systems, and rituals, and meaning, from the very dirt we will be buried into.

In La Kech. We believe that we are the other you, or should I say, you are the other me. Your story is also my story. We are one expression of feeling in a world of languages. [In Mayan tradition, the law of In Lak’ech Ala K’in means ‘I am you, and you are me. Your story is also my story.’ It is a statement of unity and oneness.]

This is a difficult time for the world. Violence, poverty, hunger, war, fueled by the lies that support such actions.

We artists must stand in truth, both our own, but also in yours.

In La Kech. Tu eres mi otro yo. You are the other me.

Let us speak to each other in stories, through words and feelings.

This is what theatre does best. We learn how to be better human beings, by coming together and wrestling with all that is conflict, and all that is joy.

The communal experience. This is what I share in the theater, and with you. On this day, when we get to share each other.

Gracias and thank you.

Luis Alfaro’s Biography

Luis Alfaro [b. 1963] is a Chicano playwright born and raised in downtown Los Angeles. He was the Associate Artistic Director of Center Theatre Group at the Music Center of Los Angeles County (2021-2022), home of the Mark Taper Forum, Ahmanson & Kirk Douglas Theaters, where he produced over one hundred new play commissions, productions, workshops, and readings.

He is the only playwright in the history of the Kennedy Center to have received two ‘Fund for New American Play’ awards in the same year. An Associate Professor at the University of Southern California, he is the director of the MFA in Dramatic Writing program. He was previously on faculty at California Institute of the Arts (Cal-Arts), Writers Program at UCLA Extension and a University of California Regents Fellow at U.C. Riverside.

He has received fellowships from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, popularly known as a “genius grant,” awarded to people who have demonstrated expertise and exceptional creativity in their respective fields.

He is also the recipient of The United States Artists; Ford Foundation Art of Change; Joyce Foundation; Mellon Foundation; PEN America/Laura Pels International Foundation Theater Award for a Master Dramatist, among others.

He was the inaugural Playwright-in-Residence for six seasons at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival (2013-2019); Playwright’s Ensemble at Chicago’s Victory Gardens Theatre (2013-2020); Inaugural Imaginistas Latinx Playwrights at the Los Angeles Theatre Center (2021-); and served in numerous positions for the Ojai Playwrights Conference (2002-2022).

His plays include Electricidad, Oedipus El Rey, Mojada, Delano, Body of Faith, Alleluia the Road, Black Butterfly, Bruja, and Straight as a Line, which have been seen at regional theaters throughout the United States, Latin America, Canada, and Europe.

His most recent play, The Travelers, was produced at the Magic Theater in San Francisco and is the winner of the Bay Area 2024 Glickman Prize. The production traveled to the Los Angeles Theatre Center, where it was named one of the nine best productions of the year by the Los Angeles Times.

Luis spent two decades in the Los Angeles Poetry and Performance Art communities, where he regularly presented at Highways Performance Space, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions and Beyond Baroque Poetry Center.

His book, The Greek Trilogy of Luis Alfaro, is the winner of the prestigious Greek & British Hellenic Prize, and licensed by Dramatists Play Service.

He is a local Emmy winner, and Emmy nominated for his short film, Chicanismo, which was produced by PBS, named Best Experimental Film at the San Antonio CineFestival and Best Short at CineAccion in San Francisco.

His recording, down-town, released on SST/New Alliance Records, was awarded Best Spoken-Word Release from the National Association of Independent Record Distributors.

He was a student of playwright Maria Irene Fornes [1930-2018], performance artist Scott Kelman [1936-2007], and a product of the Inner-City Cultural Center in downtown Los Angeles.

—From the Theatre Communications Group 

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WORLD THEATRE DAY: U.S. EMERGENT ARTIST MESSAGE 2024
Caitlin Nasema Cassidy 

Hi. My name is Caitlin Nasema Cassidy. I’m an actor, director, and producer.

I live in New York City, and I make work within and about our climate and ecological emergencies. As a storyteller, I am working to connect climate science to history to the lifecycle of a firefly, for example. Within my theater company LubDub, we often say: When it’s all very big, it helps to go small.

This is an offering in honor of World Theatre Day 2024.

Beat.

Lorca was a first love.
I read his lectures and his plays
mourned his brutal death
Learned from his desire to suggest
Not delineate
To animate
In Madrid 1928, he wrote:
“Wherever there is a dark corner, I wish to direct toward it light.”

This winter, I learned that fireflies, or lightning bugs, are neither flies nor bugs
They are beetles
And they live a good portion of their life underground
Before they can direct their light, they spend a lot of time in dark corners
There are a lot of those these days

I’m afraid to name everything the last year has taken
Holding my breath, haunted by ghosts of displacement
I’m reading the IPCC report like, “How many more statements?”
Crying on the B train ‘cause this morning my dad texted: Ivory Billed Woodpecker Extinct
Wondering what the Wall Street Journal thinks
Do they know most wasps are peaceful creatures, who do not sting?

And
In a small rehearsal room here in the city
We dance across worn wooden floorboards
Let deep breath in
Marvel that our diaphragms can move like this
We practice patience and consent
We brace for what’s next
With gentleness
We keep the magic in our fingertips

In an auditorium in Dearborn,
We’re studying how our ancestors shook their hips
Building process around relationship
We’re singing to the mountains
Conducting research on the sea
From an office in Marseille, Uncle Ramzi says:
“That’s your job as artists. You imagine what could be.”

In a theater in Stockholm
We are synchronizing our heartbeats with strangers
We are practicing the broad, sustained awareness our screens have endangered
We are turning over the soil
And this not a rehearsal
It is life

Along a river in DC
We’re choreographing burlesque with biologists
Telling tales to honor the return of the shad fish
Leaning into silliness

On Zoom
We’re telling stories that recall our vital connections to earth
Celebrating grandmothers, goddesses, and birth

In a garden in Tangiers
In a skatepark in Brooklyn
In a dance studio in Tunis
In a gymnasium in San Juan
In a black box in Jenin
In a classroom in Franklin
In a community center in Istanbul
At a top golf in Virginia
In a rehearsal room in New York City 

We are writing new worlds
With our bodies and our words
Building cultures of care
On a budget
Crafting cardboard castles
Making the best of plastic chairs
We are (re)storying the future

Like lightning bugs and Lorca
The theater and its artists
Are directing our light toward the darkest corners. 

CAITLIN NASEMA CASSIDY’S BIOGRAPHY

Caitlin Nasema Cassidy ([b. ca. 1989]; she/her) is an actor, director, and producer making experimental performance that is physical, collaborative, and poetic. Her practice is rooted in joy, embodied research, and (com)post-activism. Theatre includes NY Times Critic's Pick The Vagrant Trilogy at The Public Theater, the world premiere of Paradise at Central Square Theatre (2018 Elliot Norton Award for Outstanding Actress), NY Times Critic’s Pick Pay No Attention to the Girl with Target Margin, and Ferry Tales at The John F. Kennedy Center. Caitlin is a Grist 50 List Fixer, Social Impact Community Partner at the John F. Kennedy Center, and recipient of a National Performance Network Creation and Development Fund Award. She holds the Artist-in-Residence position at Georgetown University’s Earth Commons Institute for the Environment and Sustainability and is Co-Artistic Director of LubDub Theatre Co.  CaitlinNasemaCassidy.com

 —From the Theatre Communications Group