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 2025 message was written by Theodoros Terzopoulos, Greek Theatre Director, Educator, Author, Founder and Artistic Director of the Attis Theatre Company, Inspirator of Theatre Olympics and Chairman of the International Committee of Theatre Olympics.
It will be read in theatres, schools, libraries and cultural spaces across the world.
“Can theatre hear the SOS call that our times are sending out, in a world of impoverished citizens, locked in cells of virtual reality, entrenched in their suffocating privacy? In a world of robotized existences within a totalitarian system of control and repression across the spectrum of life?
Is theatre concerned about ecological destruction, global warming, massive biodiversity loss, ocean pollution, melting ice caps, increasing forest fires and extreme weather events? Can theatre become an active part of the ecosystem? Theatre has been watching human impact on the planet for many years, but it is finding it difficult to deal with this problem. (…)
We need new narrative ways aimed at cultivating memory and shaping a new moral and political responsibility to emerge from the multiform dictatorship of the present-day Middle Ages”.
