Guest post by Rebecca Coleman
I’m a local freelance theatre publicist, and for the last couple of years, I have done publicity for our local World Theatre Day celebrations. I have also been blogging for a little over a year. Last year, at a GVPTA World Theatre Day planning meeting, I started thinking “what if we made WTD a truly international celebration? What if there was a place on the internet where people could share their WTD stories, and also get information about WTD, its mandate, and ideas about how to celebrate it in their own communities?”
I talked to the committee about it, and they thought it was a great idea, so I sent some emails to some friends in Vancouver who were active in the theatre blogging community. They were equally enthusiastic.
We, I put the word out through Twitter, and in short order, we assembled an amazing, skilled team of facilitators from all over the world. Some of whom, while they were theatre artists, had never heard of World Theatre Day.
We got the blessing of the ITI (International Theatre Institute), and the World Theatre Day blog was the result.
The goal of the blog is two-fold: first, we want to get the word out to people about March 27. I was shocked at how many theatre artists had never heard of World Theatre Day! (we’re lucky that our own GVPTA takes such a big role in planning our yearly celebration). Second, we want to use the blog as a way to give people ideas about how to celebrate, and then to share their celebration with the rest of the world.
If you page back, or look at our Tumblog, you’ll see all the amazing and awesome ways that theatre artists from all over the world celebrated March 27, 2009.
I celebrated World Theatre Day last year flat on my back in bed–I contracted some kind of horrible stomach flu–watching the photos and videos roll in on my laptop. Let’s hope that doesn’t happen this year!
Links:
http://www.worldtheatreday.org
http://www.facebook.com/worldtheatreday
Tags: "world theatre day", blog, theatre
The Crofton House performance, however charming and well-received is not a flash mob event. The distinguishing characteristic of the flash mob is that it is UNANNOUNCED.
Ok, how about we call it a “fabulous random theatrical event”?? Granted, we use the term flashmob loosely here, but the real spirit of the idea is to have unexpected theatre in unexpected places, and the Crofton girls did a great job!