The World Theatre Day was established by the International Theatre Institute and UNESCO experts and it was celebrated on 27 March 1962 for the first time. Since then, the World Theatre Day is celebrated across the whole world.
For this occasion, a personality is invited to share her or his reflections on the theme of theatre and a culture of peace.
The 2021 message was written by the Egyptian actress Samiha AYOUB.
It will be read in theatres, schools, libraries and cultural spaces across the world.
“I am speaking to you today, not just to speak, or even to celebrate the father of all arts, “theatre,” on his world day. Rather, I invite you to stand together, all of us, hand in hand and shoulder to shoulder, to call out at the top of our voices, as we are accustomed to on the stages of our theatres, and to let our words come out to awaken the conscience of the entire world, to search within you for the lost essence of humanity. (…)
We (…) have the ability to spread life. Let us spread together for the sake of one world and one humanity.”
Entire message of Samiha AYOUB
Translated by: Hessa Alfalasi, UAE/Fujairah Centre of ITI
Biography
An Egyptian actress, born in the Shubra neighbourhood of Cairo. She graduated from the Higher Institute of Dramatic Arts in 1953, where she was taught by the playwright, Zaki Tulaimat. Her credits on the stage over the course of her artistic career amounted to approximately 170 plays, including Raba’a Al-Adawiya, Sekkat Al-Salamah, Blood on the Curtains of the Kaaba, Agha Memnon, The Caucasian Chalk Circle. Although theatrical works dominated the majority of her artwork, she had many contributions in cinema and television. In the cinema, she was distinguished through several films, including The Land of Hypocrisy, The Dawn of Islam, With Happiness, Among the Ruins, and on television, she presented many prominent works of the most important of which are Stray Light, Time for Roses, Amira in Abdeen, Al-Masrawiya. She received many honours from several presidents, including Gamal Abdel Nasser and Anwar Sadat, as well as Syrian President Hafez al-Assad and French Giscard d’Estaing.
