World Theatre Day – Message from Judi Dench*

“World Theatre Day is an opportunity to celebrate Theatre in all its myriad forms. Theatre is a source of entertainment and inspiration and has the ability to unify the many diverse cultures and peoples that exist throughout the world. But theatre is more than that and also provides opportunities to educate and inform.
Theatre is performed throughout the world and not always in a traditional theatre setting. Performances can occur in a small village in Africa, next to a mountain in Armenia, on a tiny island in the Pacific. All it needs is a space and an audience. Theatre has the ability to make us smile, to make us cry, but should also make us think and reflect.
Theatre comes about through team work. Actors are the people who are seen, but there is an amazing set of people who are not seen. They are equally as important as the actors and their differing and specialist skills make it possible for a production to take place. They too must share in any triumphs and successes that may hopefully occur.

March 27 is always the official World Theatre Day. In many ways every day should be considered a theatre day, as we have a responsibility to continue the tradition to entertain, to educate and to enlighten our audiences, without whom we couldn’t exist.”

*Note. Judy Dench is one of the finest female actors of Contemporary Britain who had excelled in theatre with her exemplary portrayal of Shakespearean Characters like lady Macbeth, Cleopatra, and in plays like Remembrance of Things Past, etc. She has acted in films and TV also.

My Wishes/Dreams/Expectations…

I wish and salute, one and every one of you who live and work with passion in theatre, a very exciting creative year ahead… As Judy Dench has pointed out, theatre can and should happen anywhere and everywhere, not just in conventional spaces of performances. Let us have the courage to leave the safety of typical performing spaces and to explore new spaces and venues, that will make our work more meaningful.

And in the increased tendency to delve on the emerging technologies that makes theatre less human, and more mechanised where actors become secondary, let us go back to the basics again. Theatre is basically a collective human art, ensemble art, where living actor is  at the centre-stage ably supported by the technicians behind. Let us be one ensemble – a human ensemble- where we can collectively celebrate our success and failure too…