With Heart and Conviction | World Theatre Day, 2022

My earliest memories are of seeing my mother rehearse with the local Gilbert & Sullivan society. As I sat in the front row of the theatre, I didn’t know what I was watching, but I could feel the elevated emotion, the exhilaration, the power of it. It was different from everyday life and therefore important.

Like so many young people who did not necessarily fit into the mainstream, theatre became my hobby and my all-consuming interest, defining my many underpaid jobs and later my research and career. Over the past couple of years we have seen theatre artists beaten down by COVID and the ensuing social and economic fallout. And yet we are not destroyed completely. Organizations like On Cue have rallied artists together around the notion of shared skills and resources, shared ideas and above all the desire for shared experiences. In people coming together, there is empowerment – a knowledge that we can do more, we can get something done, that we can create a platform from which to speak loudly…. to the world. What we each say with heart and conviction is immensely impactful.

This is our moment to imagine, as director Peter Sellars says, on the occasion of World Theatre Day 2022, “alternative realities, new possibilities, different approaches.” It starts with people who believe profoundly that anything is possible, and it ends with changing the world order. Look to Volodymyr Zelensky… and look to ourselves.

Happy World Theatre Day!