Saturday, March 30, 2013

NYC World Theatre Day 2013



We had a great turn out for the reading of the Around-the-Globe Chain Play. The reading of the play was followed by a reading of the 2013 International Messages that was penned by Dario Fo.

Here are some of the photos of this exciting event.


The Around-the-Globe Chain Play









The International Message

Friday, March 29, 2013

An Ancient Tradition






"We are all a part of an ancient tradition of bringing people together."
                                - Amanda Feldman
                                  March 27, 2013
                                  Introducing the Around-the-Globe Chain Play in NYC



Thursday, March 28, 2013

World Theatre Day All Year Round



It is nice to set aside a day every year for theatre artists and audiences around the world to celebrate this art. It gives us a chance to reflect on how theatre changes, impacts or enriches our lives.

However many of us celebrate theatre everyday. TCG has created a list of ways you can participate in the international theatre community, year round.

Check out their list.



Wednesday, March 27, 2013

World Theatre Day Message 2013




by Dario Fo

A long time ago, those in power resolved their intolerance of ‘comedians’ by banishing them from the country. Today, actors and theatre companies have trouble finding public spaces, theatres and audiences - everything because of the crisis.

Therefore, rulers no longer worry about controlling those who express themselves with irony and sarcasm, since there are no longer places for the actors to perform or spectators to perform for.

In contrast, during the Renaissance, those in power had to struggle to keep comedians, who enjoyed a wide public, at bay.

It’s commonly known that the greatest exodus of comedians happened during the century of the Counter-Reformation, which upheld the dismantling of all theatre spaces, especially in Rome, where their existence outraged the Holy City.

In 1697, under harassing demands from the most reactionary part of the bourgeoisie and the leading clergy, Pope Innocent XII ordered the elimination of the Tordinona Theatre, whose stage, according to the moralists, was accountable for the greatest number of obscene performances.

At the time of the Counter-Reformation, Cardinal Carlo Borromeo, serving in the north of Italy, committed himself to the redemption of the ‘children of Milan’, establishing a clear distinction between art - the highest form of spiritual education, and theatre - the lowest expression of profanity and vanity. In a letter addressed to his collaborators, which I quote by heart, he stated more or less as follows:
While eradicating the evil weed, we had done our utmost to burn texts containing infamous speeches, to eradicate them from human memory, and at the same time prosecute those who spread such texts in print. But even as we sleep, the Devil works with renewed trickery. How far more penetrating to the soul than what the eyes can see! How far more devastating to the minds of boys and young girls is the spoken word, with appropriate voice and gesture, than a dead word in a book. It is therefore as critical for us to rid our cities of performers as we would do with unwanted souls.

Therefore, the only way out of this crisis is to hope that a great hunt will be organized against us, especially against the young people who want to learn the art of theatre: a new Diaspora of comedians, who, from such an imposition, will undoubtedly reap unimaginable benefits from a new kind of performance.

Translated by Mirko Grewing (Milan) and Douglas Howe (New York)




Tuesday, March 26, 2013

World Theatre Day Tomorrow!



Join us on World Theatre Day (tomorrow) for a reading of the Around-the-Globe Chain Play!





Wednesday, March 27th at 7PM at The Lark Play Development Center (311 West 43rd Street, 5th Floor, New York, NY 10036)

Tickets are free, but reservations are strongly encouraged. www.eventbrite.com 

A reception follows the reading.

Monday, March 25, 2013

A Distinctly Canadian Perspective





The Professional Association of Canadian Theatres (PACT), Playwrights Guild of Canada (PGC) and l'Association des théâtres francophones du Canada (ATFC) have once again joined forces to promote World Theatre Day.

They have come up with some fantastic ways for everyone to contribute to this global celebration.

Check out their site!



Caridad Svich


Meet the playwrights who are contributing to the Around-the-Globe Chain Play.


Caridad Svich (New York City, USA) received a 2012 OBIE Award for Lifetime Achievement in the theatre and the 2011 American Theatre Critics Association Primus Prize for her play The House of the Spirits, based on the Isabel Allende novel. She has been short-listed for the PEN Award in Drama four times, including in the year 2012 for her play Magnificent Waste. In the 2012-13 season: 2012 Edgerton Foundation New Play Award round two recipient GUAPA receives a rolling world premiere courtesy of NNPN at Borderlands Theater in Arizona, Miracle Theatre in Oregon and Phoenix Theater in Indiana; her 4-actor play Love in the Time of Cholera, based on the Gabriel Garcia Marquez novel, premiered at Repertorio Espanol in NYC, where it is still running, The Tropic of X premieres at Single Carrot Theatre in Baltimore. There will also be regional US premieres of In the Time of the Butterflies (based on the Julia Alvarez novel) at Mixed Blood Theatre in Minneapolis, The House of the Spirits at Gala Hispanic Theatre in Washington D.C, and academic premiere of her fantasia on 1963, Pop culture and the Kennedy assassination The Archaeology of Dreams at University of Nebraska-Omaha. Her new play Spark received 32 readings across the US and abroad, including a reading at the Cherry Lane Theatre produced by TEL and Mannatee Films under Scott Schwartz’ direction in November 2012 to honor female war veterans (http://www.nopassport.org/spark). Among her key works: 12 Ophelias, Any Place But Here, Alchemy of Desire/Dead-Man’s Blues, Iphigenia Crash Land Falls on the Neon Shell That Was Once Her Heart (a rave fable), Instructions for Breathing, Magnificent Waste and the multimedia collaboration The Booth Variations. Five of her plays radically re-imagining ancient Greek tragedies are published in the September 2012 collection Blasted Heavens (Eyecorner Press, University of Denmark). Her works are also published by TCG, Broadway Play Publishing, Playscripts, Arte Publico Press, Smith & Kraus, Alexander Street Press, and more. Among her awards/recognitions are: Harvard University Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study Fellowship TCG/Pew Charitable Trusts National Theater Artist Residency at INTAR, NEA/TCG Playwriting Residency at the Mark Taper Theatre Forum Latino Theatre Initiative and a California Arts Council Fellowship. She has edited several books on theatre including Out of Silence: Censorship in Theatre & Performance (Eyecorner Press), Trans-Global Readings and Theatre in Crisis? (both for Manchester University Press) Divine Fire (BackStage Books), and Out of the Fringe: Contemporary Latina/o Theatre & Performance (TCG), and Conducting a Life: Reflections on the Theatre of Maria Irene Fornes (Smith & Kraus). Her translations of Federico Garcia Lorca’s plays are collected in Lorca: Six Major Plays (NoPassport Press) and Impossible Theatre (Smith & Kraus). She has also translated theatre works by Julio Cortazar, Lope de Vega, Calderon de la Barca, Antonio Buero Vallejo and contemporary plays from Mexico, Cuba, Serbia and Catalonia. She is alumna playwright of New Dramatists, founder of NoPassport theatre alliance & press, Drama Editor of Asymptote journal of literary translation, associate editor of Routledge/UK's Contemporary Theatre Review and contributing editor of TheatreForum. She is affiliated artist of the Lark Play Development Center, Woodshed Collective, New Georges, and a Lifetime member of Ensemble Studio Theatre. She holds an MFA in Theatre from UCSD, and she trained for four consecutive years with Maria Irene Fornes at INTAR. She has taught playwriting at Bard College, Barnard College, Bennington College, Einhorn School of the Arts at Primary Stages, OSU, Rutgers University-New Brunswick, ScriptWorks, UCSD, and Yale School of Drama. She is an entry in the Oxford Encyclopedia of Latino Literature. Website: http://www.caridadsvich.com


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Join us on World Theatre Day, Wednesday, March 27th at 7PM at The Lark Play Development Center (311 West 43rd Street, 5th Floor, New York, NY 10036)

Tickets are free, but reservations are strongly encouraged. www.eventbrite.com 

A reception follows the reading.

Sunday, March 24, 2013

Sigtryggur Magnason


Meet the playwrights who are contributing to the Around-the-Globe Chain Play.


Sigtryggur Magnason (Iceland) was born on January 20th, 1974. He graduated with a B.A. degree in Icelandic literature and language from the University of Iceland in 1997. From 1998 onwards, worked for various media outlets, such as the Icelandic Broadcasting Service, as an editor of a daily radio programme, and as a media correspondent for the cultural supplement of Morgunblaðið. In the spring of 1997 Sigtryggur published the poetry book Ást á grimmum vetri / Love in a Cruel Winter. Five years later Mál og menning published his poetry book/play Herjólfur er hættur að elska /Herjólfur Has Stopped Loving, which was staged in the spring of 2003 by the National Theatre of Iceland and recorded for radio broadcasting.  In the spring of 2007, Sigtryggur's work Yfirvofandi / Imminent, directed by Bergur Þór Ingólfsson and performed by Edda Arnljótsdóttir, Ingvar E. Sigurðsson and Jörundur Ragnarsson, premiered in Sigtryggur's own home, as a part of the Reykjavík Arts Festival. The work earned Sigtryggur a nomination for Gríman , the annual Icelandic drama awards, as playwright of the year. The work was also performed by the Icelandic Broadcasting Service Theatre in 2009, and won a Gríman award in the same year for best radio play. It was published in a bilingual edition, in Icelandic and English, as translated by Lani Yamamoto. In 2010 the play won 2ndprize in a Nordic radio play competition. In 2011 Imminent was published, along with two other Icelandic works, by Hänschel Schauspiel in Berlin.

In 2007, Sigtryggur's translation of the play How I Learned to Drive by Paula Vogel was staged by Akureyri Theatre Company. Herjólfur Has Stopped Loving was staged at The Internationalists Theatre Festival in New York in the fall of 2008 (directed by Jeremy Lydic). In June 2012 Herjólfur was staged in The University of South Florida in Tampa, Florida, directed by Lauren Allison. In 2009, Sigtryggur was asked to write a play for the graduating class of the drama department of The Icelandic Academy of the Arts. The resulting work, Bráðum hata ég þig / Soon I'll Hate You premiered in January 2010, directed by Una Þorleifsdóttir. In May 2012 Sigtryggur’s play TRANS was performed in a Champagne Club in Reykjavík as a part of Reykjavík Arts Festival. The play was recorded for the Icelandic Broadcasting Service and premiered on air 17th of February 2013. His newest play, Nú er himneska sumarið komið / The Heavenly Summer Has Arrived, will premiere in Iceland in April.  Sigtryggur is currently working on a TV-series with Árni Ólafur Ásgeirsson and a film script with Árni Thor Jónsson.



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Join us on World Theatre Day, Wednesday, March 27th at 7PM at The Lark Play Development Center (311 West 43rd Street, 5th Floor, New York, NY 10036)

Tickets are free, but reservations are strongly encouraged. www.eventbrite.com 

A reception follows the reading.

Saturday, March 23, 2013

Celebrate WTD with a Dancing Chicken!



In honor of World Theatre Day, Thespianz Theatrer from Pakistan performed Crazy Chicken at the Pak-American Cultural Center in Karachi for a very enthusiastic audience.





Thank you for sharing these amazing photos!

Sarah Grochala


Meet the playwrights who are contributing to the Around-the-Globe Chain Play.


Sarah Grochala (United Kingdom) currently lives in London. Her work has been produced in the UK and internationally. Her play S-27 (Finborough 2009; Griffin Theatre, Sydney 2010; Annex Theatre, Toronto, 2012) won the 2007 Amnesty International Protect the Human Playwriting Competition and was shortlisted for the King’s Cross Award and the Leah Ryan Prize for Emerging Women Writers. In 2011, she was the recipient of OffWestEnd.com’s Adopt a Playwright Award for her play Smolensk.
Other plays include: Open Ground (Teatro Technis, London 2005), Waiting for Romeo (Hill Street, Edinburgh 2006; Pleasance, London 2009). She is a founder member of the theatre company Agent 160, for whom she wrote a short adaptation of Hans Christian Anderson’s Red Shoes (Theatre 503, London; Chapter, Cardiff; The Arches, Glasgow; Queen's, Belfast 2012). She is currently an associate artist at Headlong and on attachment at the National Theatre.


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Join us on World Theatre Day, Wednesday, March 27th at 7PM at The Lark Play Development Center (311 West 43rd Street, 5th Floor, New York, NY 10036)

Tickets are free, but reservations are strongly encouraged. www.eventbrite.com 

A reception follows the reading.


Friday, March 22, 2013

World Theatre Day 2013: Storefront and Center



This year the League of Chicago Theatres is hosting a Storefront and Center to "explore the importance of global dialogues and building and maintaining connections abroad by focusing on international work."

It sounds like an interesting and exhilirating event.

If you are in Chicago on March 27th, check it out.

Wednesday, March 27, 2013
12:30 - 1:30PM
Goodman Owen Theatre
170 No. Dearborn Street

Learn more...

Check out the Facebook page

Beatriz Cabur


Meet the playwrights who are contributing to the Around-the-Globe Chain Play.


Beatriz Cabur (Spain) is a theatre director and playwright. Graduated in Theatre Directing and Playwriting from the RESAD, Madrid, Spain with a Master of Advanced Studies in AV-Comms from the UCM. Beatriz has written and directed theatre in Spain, Italy, Mexico and the USA. Two of her plays have been published. Some of the organizations that have commissioned and supported her theatre are The Cervantes Institute, The Madrid City Hall and the Consulate General of Spain in New York. Beatriz is the co-founder of New International Theatre Experience (NITE), a global service organization that supports and empowers theatre makers by revolutionizing the way artists and administrators create, connect and cooperate in the twenty-first century. Founded in 2012 in Madrid and New York by Beatriz Cabur and Douglas Howe, NITE transforms the theatrical landscape by providing both physical and virtual platforms for investigation, innovation and interaction. She is a member of the international network for working playwrights, The Fence. She’s currently directing a project called “Interteatro” to promote the Spanish Playwrighting worldwide. "Interteatro" experiments with different combinations of recorded video, live streaming, and live performances thorough the shows. The first one of the eight plays that “Interteatro” features premièred on February 21st in Milan, Italy and it was a great success. For further information please visit http://www.beatrizcabur.com and http://www.interteatro.com.



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Join us on World Theatre Day, Wednesday, March 27th at 7PM at The Lark Play Development Center (311 West 43rd Street, 5th Floor, New York, NY 10036)

Tickets are free, but reservations are strongly encouraged. www.eventbrite.com 

A reception follows the reading.


Thursday, March 21, 2013

NYC World Theatre Day Performances



Clown Bar by Adam Szymkowicz
Now - 3/29 @ 9PM 
Produced by Pipeline Theatre Company @ Parkside Lounge
When Happy’s junkie brother Timmy is found dead, Happy returns to his old clown life to ask a few questions. But can he go home again without getting sucked into the seedy clown underbelly of vice and violence?...

The Drawer Boy by Michael Healey
Now - 3/23 @ 8PM
Produced by Oberon Theatre Ensemble @ June Havoc Theatre
Two aging bachelor farmers in 1972 rural Ontario, both World War II veterans and lifelong friends, share a quiet and uneventful life based on stories and routine. Their lives are comically disrupted when a young, energetic actor from the big city shows up on their doorstep wanting to live and work with them as research for a play about farming. As the actor immerses himself, The Farmers' darkest secrets become part of the actor's play and the lines between theatre and life, and memory and reality, become blurred. Heartbreak and levity mix in this extraordinary play about storytelling and how it transforms our lives.

rogerandtom by Julien Schwab
Now - 3/23 @ 7PM
Produced by Personal Space Theatrics  @ HERE Arts Center
One hour of mind-bending, head-scratching, meta-meta-quasi-romanti-tragi-dramedy. Question the characters. Question the actors. Question yourself. Penny is Penny. But Richard is William. And you are just a member of the audience. Or are you? Just how impenetrable is the fourth wall?

The Traged of King Arthur by W. Shakespeare by Arthur Phillips
3/22–4/7 @ various times
Produced by Guerrilla Shakespeare Project  @ TBG Theatre
World premiere stage adaptation of the acclaimed novel 'The Tragedy of Arthur'


Zainabu Jallo


Meet the playwrights who are contributing to the Around-the-Globe Chain Play.



Zainabu Jallo (Nigeria) has written three plays Saraya Dangana, Onions Make Us Cry, and Holy Night and other short plays. Onions Make Us Cry was read at the HotINK international festival of new plays in March 2011 at the Lark Play Development Center in New York. In November 2011, Onions make us Cry was announced as one of the six winning plays of the National Studio London, Africa Project. Holy Night, one of the finalists of the Internationalists Playwriting Competition is currently being produced. Zainabu is a Sundance Theatre Fellow. She also writes poetry.






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Join us on World Theatre Day, Wednesday, March 27th at 7PM at The Lark Play Development Center (311 West 43rd Street, 5th Floor, New York, NY 10036)

Tickets are free, but reservations are strongly encouraged. www.eventbrite.com 

A reception follows the reading.

Wednesday, March 20, 2013

NYC World Theatre Day Events


We hope you will join us for these exciting World Theatre Day Events


AROUND-THE-GLOBE CHAIN PLAY
Starting & ending in NYC, a play is written as it travels around the world, making 16 stops with playwrights from across the globe. Wednesday, March 27th at 7:00 PM @ The Lark Play Development Center (311 West 43rd St) Tickets are FREE! Make reservations @ nycwtdchainplay2013.eventbrite.com

RECEPTION
The reading will be followed by a reception where the International Theatre Institute’s World Theatre Day Message will be read.

THE MESSAGE
Read the 2013 International World Theatre Day Message by DARIO FO



Enver Husicic


Meet the playwrights who are contributing to the Around-the-Globe Chain Play.



Enver Husicic (The Netherlands) studied Writing for Performance at the Utrecht School of the Arts. He has written for a number of Dutch theatre companies including Het Syndicaat, Het Zuidelijk Toneel and Growing Up in Public. His plays deal with sexual desire, love, death and torture, and are characterized by a poetic intensity, humour and extreme and violent stage action. Enver’s plays depict a society that preaches false morals and values to disguise the individualism and existential loneliness of the human being. With razor sharp dialogue, his characters rip open themselves and those around them in their inability and unwillingness to adapt or conform. ‘The approach is reminiscent of the East European avant-garde represented by writers such Slawomir Mrozek and Pavel Kohout, artists who criticized the insane bureaucracy with a good dose of absurdism and absurdity. No psychological characterization but […] grotesque figures which symbolize, to a lesser or greater degree, the powers and forces of a derailed society’ Algemeen Dagblad.



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Join us on World Theatre Day, Wednesday, March 27th at 7PM at The Lark Play Development Center (311 West 43rd Street, 5th Floor, New York, NY 10036)

Tickets are free, but reservations are strongly encouraged. www.eventbrite.com 

A reception follows the reading.

Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Ulrike Syha


Meet the playwrights who are contributing to the Around-the-Globe Chain Play.


Ulrike Syha (Germany) was born in 1976 in Wiesbaden, Germany. She studied "Dramaturgie" at the "Hochschule für Musik und Theater" in Leipzig and worked for several years as an assistant to the director at Schauspiel Leipzig (artistic director: Wolfgang Engel). Since 2003 she lives as a freelance playwright in Hamburg, Germany. Ulrike Syha won several awards and stipends - the "Kleistförderpreis für junge Dramatiker" (2002), a fellowship at Akademie Schloss Solitude (2006/2007), a stipend at Deutsche Akademie Rom / Casa Baldi (2008) and the "Hamburger Förderpreis für Literatur" (2010), among others. She has been writer in residence at Nationaltheater Mannheim (2009/2010) and she has been invited to the renowned "Mülheimer Dramatikertage" twice (2003 and 2009). Ulrike Syha's plays, radio dramas, and translations are published by Rowohlt Theater Verlag, Reinbek, Germany. Her newest play "Mao und ich" will be staged at Nationaltheater Mannheim in autumn 2013.



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Join us on World Theatre Day, Wednesday, March 27th at 7PM at The Lark Play Development Center (311 West 43rd Street, 5th Floor, New York, NY 10036)

Tickets are free, but reservations are strongly encouraged. www.eventbrite.com 

A reception follows the reading.

Monday, March 18, 2013

World Theatre Day in Bangladesh



We would like to thank Mastafa Kamal Jatra for forwarding us photos of their preparations for World Theatre Day in Chittagong, Bangladesh.




How are you celebrating World Theatre Day?  We love to share your photos. 

email us.




John Freedman


Meet the playwrights who are contributing to the Around-the-Globe Chain Play.


John Freedman (Russia) was the winner of the first annual new play competition hosted by The Internationalists in 2011 Dancing, Not Dead. He has collaborated with several American theaters as a playwright, translator or dramaturg, including Double Edge Theater (MA), Breaking String Theater (TX), Generous Company (MD) and First Stage (VA). His 50+ play translations have been performed in the United States, Australia, Canada, South Africa and England. His translation into Russian of Adam Rapp’s Nocturne, with Maksym Kurochkin, opened at the Young Spectator Theater in Moscow in December 2012. He was the Russian director of The New Russian Drama: Translation/Production/Conference (2007 - 2010) at Towson University and is the Director of the U.S. government funded New American Plays for Russia project. John has written or edited and translated nine books on the topic of Russian drama and theater and has been the theater critic of The Moscow Times since 1992.



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Join us on World Theatre Day, Wednesday, March 27th at 7PM at The Lark Play Development Center (311 West 43rd Street, 5th Floor, New York, NY 10036)

Tickets are free, but reservations are strongly encouraged. www.eventbrite.com 

A reception follows the reading.

Sunday, March 17, 2013

Janice Poon


Meet the playwrights who are contributing to the Around-the-Globe Chain Play.


Janice Poon (Hong Kong) Janice Sze Wan POON is a writer and theatre professional based in Hong Kong. She was awarded the Asian Cultural Council Lee Hysan Foundation fellowship to pursue research on dramaturgy and new play development in the United States for twelve months in the year 2010-11, during which she was a resident artist at the Lark Play Development Center. Her international engagements include the International Playwrights’ Forum of the International Theatre Institute, the Billy Rose Theatre collection at New York Public Library for the Performing Arts as a China Archivist for Theatre Without Borders. Back home, she is the founder and Artistic Director of Hong Kong Dramatists and a founding member of the New Writing Lab at Onandon Theatre Workshop. Ms. Poon started her professional career as an art and cultural journalist for Ming Pao Daily News, Hong Kong’s most widely distributed newspaper. She distinguished herself by establishing the first literary department in Hong Kong theatre and an active cultural worker in Hong Kong working also in the capacities as a playwright, director, culture writer, performer and curator. Ms Poon has edited six publications on Hong Kong theatre and culture. She’s keen to introduce contemporary theatre writing to Hong Kong with productions of Crave by Sarah Kane (UK, 2006), Death and the Maiden by Elfriede Jelinek (Austria, 2008), God of Carnage by Yasmina Reza (France, 2011) and Pornography by Simon Stephens (UK, 2013). She has curated and conceived site-specific performances at local bookshops for the Hong Kong People’s Fringe Festival. Ms Poon is committed to new play development and cross-disciplinary theatre productions. Five of her plays were presented in the Hong Kong Playwright Scheme and her plays were developed internationally in New York and London. Her play, The Room, was selected as part of the “30 Plays Celebrate 30 Years” festival of the League of Professional Theatre Women in New York in 2012.



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Join us on World Theatre Day, Wednesday, March 27th at 7PM at The Lark Play Development Center (311 West 43rd Street, 5th Floor, New York, NY 10036)

Tickets are free, but reservations are strongly encouraged. www.eventbrite.com 

A reception follows the reading.

Saturday, March 16, 2013

Abed Alrahem Al Awji


Meet the playwrights who are contributing to the Around-the-Globe Chain Play.



Abed Alrahem Al Awji (Lebanon) is a writer, actor and storyteller. He has written many short stories, films and plays. He was chosen by the Royal Court Theatre in London to write two full-length plays: The Abandoned City and Sleeping Beauty Insomnia, which was produced in Scotland in 2011.






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Join us on World Theatre Day, Wednesday, March 27th at 7PM at The Lark Play Development Center (311 West 43rd Street, 5th Floor, New York, NY 10036)

Tickets are free, but reservations are strongly encouraged. www.eventbrite.com 

A reception follows the reading.

Friday, March 15, 2013

Jeton Neziraj


Meet the playwrights who are contributing to the Around-the-Globe Chain Play.



Jeton Neziraj (Kosovo) has written over fiftee plays that have been staged and performed widely in Europe as well as in the USA. His plays and his writings have been translated and published in 13 languages. Neziraj is the founder and the director of Qendra Multimedia, a cultural production company based in Prishtina.








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Join us on World Theatre Day, Wednesday, March 27th at 7PM at The Lark Play Development Center (311 West 43rd Street, 5th Floor, New York, NY 10036)

Tickets are free, but reservations are strongly encouraged. www.eventbrite.com 

A reception follows the reading.

Thursday, March 14, 2013

Mixkaela Villalon


Meet the playwrights who are contributing to the Around-the-Globe Chain Play.


Mixkaela Villalon (The Philippines) is a playwright and a fictionist whose works have been published in various anthologies. She is a graduate student of the University of the Philippines struggling to complete her Master's degree in Creative Writing in Filipino. She has had two plays staged for the Virgin Labfest Theater Festival at the Cultural Center of the Philippines, while her play Streetlight Manifesto debuted as a stage reading at the hotINK Theater Festival at the LARK in New York. Currently, she is a scriptwriter for a local television network and teaches Creative Writing for Video Games at a local collage.



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Join us on World Theatre Day, Wednesday, March 27th at 7PM at The Lark Play Development Center (311 West 43rd Street, 5th Floor, New York, NY 10036)

Tickets are free, but reservations are strongly encouraged. www.eventbrite.com 

A reception follows the reading.

Wednesday, March 13, 2013

2013 World Theatre Events Map


Check out TCG's map of World Theatre Day events from around the globe.



View World Theatre Day 2013 Events in a larger map


For more info go to the TCG website.



Van Badham


Meet the playwrights who are contributing to the Around-the-Globe Chain Play.


Van Badham (Australia) is a playwright, novelist, screenwriter, critic, social commentator, broadcaster, dramaturg, director and cabaret performer. She has been called “a major talent” by The Guardian, “the brilliant Australian playwright” by The Independent and “one of the leading voices of her generation” by TimeOut London. Van was based in London for 10 years; here, her achievements included winning the NSDF International Play Script Competition and Sunday Times Harold Hobson Award for Drama Criticism, selection for the Summer Play Festival New York and national tours of her work supported by the Arts Council UK. She received commissions from Nabokov, Floodtide, LAMDA, Oxford Playhouse, the Royal Court and the BBC, and trained in writing for television on attachment with Holby City. From 2009-2011, Van was Literary Manager of the Finborough Theatre, London. In 2011, Van returned to her native Australia to take up an appointment to her present position as Artistic Associate (Writing) at Melbourne’s Malthouse Theatre. In Australia, she has been selected for three National Play Festivals, won a Premier’s Award for her play Black Hands / Dead Section and won numerous other national honours and awards for playwriting and screenwriting. Presently, she is completing the second volume in the three-book Book of the Witch novel saga for Pan Macmillan Australia. She writes occasional columns for many publications and in 2011 was co-host of a literary programme for ABC radio. Internationally, Van’s work has been staged in the USA, Germany, Austria, Iceland, Slovenia and Switzerland, and her 2011 play, How It Is Or As You Like It was staged at the Rijkstheater, Stockholm, Sweden in August 2012. Van is on twitter @vanbadham, and more information is available on her website at www.vanbadham.com.



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Join us on World Theatre Day, Wednesday, March 27th at 7PM at The Lark Play Development Center (311 West 43rd Street, 5th Floor, New York, NY 10036)

Tickets are free, but reservations are strongly encouraged. www.eventbrite.com 

A reception follows the reading.

Tuesday, March 12, 2013

Bekah Brunstetter


Meet the playwrights who are contributing to the Around-the-Globe Chain Play.


Bekah Brunstetter (Los Angeles, USA) plays include A Long and Happy Life (Upcoming, Naked Angels), Be a Good Little Widow (ARS NOVA, Spring 2011; COLLABORACTION, Fall 2011), House of Home (Williamstown Theater Festival, ROUGH reading Series), OOHRAH! (Atlantic Theater, 2009, Steppenwolf Garage / Livewire Productions, 2012), and Miss Lilly Gets Boned (Lark Playwrights Week 2009, Finborough Theater, June 2010; Ice Factory, July 2012). She is a New York New Voices Fellow through the Lark Play Development Center, a member of The Primary Stages Writer’s Group and the Naked Radio writing team. She is an alumni of the Women's Project Writer's Lab, the Ars Nova Play Group, and the Playwright's Realm.  She is currently working on an EST Sloan commission, and just finished working with Craig Wright on a new MTV series, Underemployed.  BA UNC Chapel Hill; MFA in Dramatic Writing from the New School for Drama. http://www.bekahbrunstetter.com


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Join us on World Theatre Day, Wednesday, March 27th at 7PM at The Lark Play Development Center (311 West 43rd Street, 5th Floor, New York, NY 10036)

Tickets are free, but reservations are strongly encouraged. www.eventbrite.com 

A reception follows the reading.

Monday, March 11, 2013

Dominique Morisseau

Meet the playwrights who are contributing to the Around-the-Globe Chain Play.



Dominique Morisseau (New York, USA) a writer and actress, is recent alumni of the 2011 Public Theater Emerging Writers Group, the Women’s Project Playwrights Lab, and the Lark Playwrights Workshop. Her play, Detroit ’67, will receive a world premiere in the 2012-2013 season of the Public Theater, which will be presented in association with the Classical Theatre of Harlem. In September 2012, her play Sunset Baby had its world premiere at the Gate Theater in London, UK. Dominique’s inaugural play, Follow Me To Nellie’s, was developed at the 2010 O’Neill National Playwrights Conference and produced at Premiere Stages in July 2011. Her produced one-acts include: Third Grade (FTT Festival), Black at Michigan (Cherry Lane Studio/DUTF), Socks, Roses Are Played Out and Love and Nappiness (Center Stage, ATH). Dominique’s commissions include: love.lies.liberation (The New Group), Bumrush (Hip Hop Theater Festival) and The Masterpiece (Harlem9/HSA).  Dominique is currently developing a 3-play cycle on her hometown of Detroit, entitled “The Detroit Projects”.  The first play in the series, Detroit ’67, was developed at The Public Theater and was a finalist for the 2011 O’Neill National Playwrights Conference. The second play in the series, Paradise Blue, was developed June 2011 at the Voice and Vision Retreat, the Hansberry Project at ACT in Seattle, and at Dartmouth with New York Theatre Workshop. Her work has also been published in NY Times bestseller - “Chicken Soup for the African American Soul”.  Dominique is a Jane Chambers Playwriting Award Honoree, a two-time NAACP Image Award recipient, a runner-up for the 2011 Princess Grace Award, a recipient of the Elizabeth George commission from South Coast Rep, a commendation from the Primus Prize by the American Theatre Critics Association, and the winner of the 2012 Barrie and Bernice Stavis Playrwright Award by National Theatre Conference. Dominique is also the 2012 PoNY (Playwrights of New York) Fellow.

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Join us on World Theatre Day, Wednesday, March 27th at 7PM at The Lark Play Development Center (311 West 43rd Street, 5th Floor, New York, NY 10036)

Tickets are free, but reservations are strongly encouraged. www.eventbrite.com 

A reception follows the reading.

Friday, March 8, 2013

Thursday, March 7, 2013

Celebrate Local Theatre Globally



"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."
                                                                                       -- Travis Bedard, 2009

Wednesday, March 6, 2013

Play Travels Around-the-Globe


Want to know where our Around-the-Globe Chain Play is?

We've mapped all the stops that this play will take as it whizzes around the world.



View Around-the-Globe Chain Play in a larger map


Want to see the end result?

Join us on World Theatre Day, Wednesday, March 27th at 7PM at The Lark Play Development Center (311 West 43rd Street, 5th Floor, New York, NY 10036)

Tickets are free, but reservations are strongly encouraged. www.eventbrite.com 

A reception follows the reading.


Monday, March 4, 2013

World Theatre Day 2013



World Theatre Day 2013 will be celebrated around the world on Wednesday, March 27th.  However here in NYC, we celebrate WTD for an entire week March 23 - 30th.

There are so many amazing activities to Co:

  • The Around the Globe Chain Play
    In honor of World Theatre Day, 16 playwrights from around the world will contribute to this play. Playwrights include: Dominique Morisseau (USA, NYC), Bekah Brunstetter (USA, Los Angeles), Van Badham (Australia), Mixkaela Villalon (Philippines), Janice Poon (Hong Kong), Abdelrahem Alawji (Lebanon), Jeton Neziraj (Kosovo), John Freedman (Russia), Ulrike Syha (Germany),  Enver Husicic (Netherlands), Zainabu Jallo (Nigeria), Beatriz Cabur (Spain), Sarah Grochala (UK),  Sigtryggur Magnason (Iceland), Caridad Svich (USA, NYC) and one TBA.

    The final script will be given a stage reading on March 27th at 7:00 PM. The reading will take place at The Lark Play Development Center (311 West 43rd Street, 5th Floor, New York, NY 10036). The reading will be directed by Doug Howe, Artistic Director of the NYC based theatre company The Internationalist.

    This event is FREE, but reservations are suggested. To make reservations go to www.eventbrite.com

  • Reception
    Following the Chain Play reading on 3/27 a reception will be held at the Lark Play Development Center where a number of NYC theatre luminaries will read the International Theatre Institute’s World Theatre Day Message.

  • SPLAT Performance (Site-specific Public Large Acts of Theatre)
    More Details Soon

  • Lots of Performances
    Performances around the city will be celebrating this global event by including the International Theatre Institute’s World Theatre Day Message in their programs during the WTD week (3/23 - 3/27)

    If you have a production up 3/23 - 3/27 and want to be a part of the festivities, join the coalition.

  • The Message
    This year International Theatre Institute’s World Theatre Day Message will be written by Dario Fo, the Italian playwright, director, actor and composer.

  • NYCWTD Blog
    Here on our blog, we will:
    • Follow the Around the Globe Chain Play by posting the bios of each of the playwrights and the script as it comes in.
    • We are also asking readers to send photos of their theatres and productions to nycwtd@gmail.com and we will post them here on our blog
    • We will post photos of the SPLAT performances and update you on all of the NYCWTD activities.
    • And of course we will be posting the ITI WTD message.


Please keep checking in and you can also follow us on Facebook and on Twitter ()to keep up-to-date!