IOTF: International Online Theatre Festival 2023 showcased 39 shows from 23 countries, across all six continents. Their range of artistic approaches and social concerns was astounding. We encouraged audiences to journey freely through their worlds and worldviews.

April 17-April 30

DOWNLOAD PRESS RELEASE HERE

THEATRE AND ITS OTHERS…

2023 festival theme, Theatre and Its Others, honored the human, animal, and machine interdependencies of theatre practices, as well as tested cultural, social, political, and economic acts of “Othering.” A contemporary moment marked by wars, health crises, and ecological collapse calls us to care for our shared materiality and environments. This year’s festival strived to showcase the alterities and the marginalized. Building on our ethos of pluralism and decolonization, IOTF’s shared curatorship across the network of The Theatre Times Regional Editors fostering a greater representation of the wealth of global theater practices.

Thanks to this group of global curators and international artists, who presented their work pro bono, IOTF 2023 was able to offer high-quality theatre performances to groups typically excluded from theatre experience: the disabled, the elderly, the clinically vulnerable, the homebound, the culturally and economically marginalized, and geographically distant.

Among many shows, this year’s highlights included productions of The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood, Other People by Dorota Maslowska, and A Play for the Living in the Time of Extinction by Miranda Rose Hall, and well-known theater companies like Arlekin Players, Greenpig, La Phármaco, The Royal Court Theater, The Workshop Theatre, Hotel Europa, ProEnglish Theatre, Theatre Barakah, Paroxa, The Center for Less Good Idea, and NTGent.

IOTF 2023 was presented in partnership with the European Theatre Convention, DigitalTheatrePlus.com, and metaLAB (at) Harvard.

The IOTF: International Online Theatre Festival is a yearly celebration of innovative global theatre artists working in diverse mediums and styles. Previous editions have included the work of acclaimed companies and theatres as well as new, emerging artists just launching their careers. IOTF 2021 showcased 33 shows from 24 countries. IOTF 2020 showed 42 shows from 16 countries. IOTF 2019 showcased 26 shows from 10 countries. showcased 42 shows from 16 countries. In total, over 1 million people participated in all three editions.

TheTheatreTimes.com is an open-access global theatre portal. Since its launch in November 2016, TheTheatreTimes.com has published over 5,000 articles and theatre reviews covering theatre in 90 countries and regions. With 32 thematic sections, more than 150 Regional Managing Editors, and over 60 media partners around the world, we have grown to be the most far-reaching and comprehensive global theatre portal today.

THEATRE AND ITS OTHERS

The International Online Theatre Festival

April 17 – April 30, 2023

Inni Ludzie (Other People)

by Written by Dorota Masłowska, Directed by Maciej Gorczyński, Teatr Barakah (2020), Poland

ONE DAY ONLY! April 24, 2023 - 9 am EST /3 pm CET - April 25, 9 am EST /3 pm CET Dorota Masłowska’s Inni Ludzie (Other People) is set within the urban spaces of Warsaw, and the tensions between local, national, and global contexts within the post-soviet metropolis...

The Penelopiad

by Written by Margaret Atwood, Directed by Frederique Michel, City Garage Theatre (2022), United States

The Penelopiad by feminist icon Margaret Atwood, author of The Handmaid’s Tale. In this remarkable retelling of The Odyssey, Atwood transforms both the power and the politics of the classic tale by shifting the point of view to Penelope, Odysseus’s wife, and of her...

It’s True, It’s True, It’s True

by Written by Ellice Stevens & Billy Barrett, Breach Theatre and Artemisia Films Ltd (2018, 2020), U.K.

“Yes. Everything I have said is the truth. If it were not the truth, I would not have said it.”Based on verbatim transcripts from the 1612 trial of Agostino Tassi, It’s True, It’s True, It’s True unpacks power, consent, and feminism. Centuries after it shook...

La Domestication

by Written and Directed by Luz Arcas (2016), La Phármaco, Spain

Neo-liberalism is a new form of colonization: it imposes its agenda of customs and beliefs with radical violence, and condemns the colonized body to a life oriented around its values: youth, success, asepsis, and non-locality. As with old-school colonialism, the last...

A Play for the Living in a Time of Extinction

by Directed by Katie Mitchell, Written by Miranda Rose Hall, Théâtre Vidy-Lausanne (2021), Switzerland

In this eerie one-woman performance, a showing of an environmental play has been canceled at the last minute and the production dramaturg has been asked to step in to explain what has happened. Rather than sticking to a script with which she no longer quite agrees,...

Milk & Honey Revisited

by Written and Directed by Khayelihle Dom Gumede, The Centre for the Less Good Idea (2021), South Africa

A play in recognition of the 100 years that had passed since the implementation of the 1913 Land Act, Milk & Honey told the story of a young and successful man who had lost his way, leaving ancestry and spirituality behind, and with no rootedness to the land in...

A Fight Against…(Una Lucha Contra…)

by Written by Pablo Manzi, Directed by Sam Pritchard, The Royal Court Theatre (2022), United Kingdom

“He said, ‘The day will come when they don’t cut our heads off in front of people.’ And I asked him, ‘Why?’ And he said, ‘Because we’ll cut them off ourselves.’”A lecturer in Chile.A study group in the USA.A guard in the desert.A hangman in Mexico.A woman who won’t...

Step Memories: Return of the Oppressed

by Written by greenpig, Directed by Yoon Hansol, (presented at Festival/Tokyo in 2012), South Korea

Step-memories—Return of the Oppressed is the second work of the series An Insistent Reflection on Forms. The work attempts to closely examine the real nature of the Korean War, which still has not ended. An Insistent Reflection on Forms is a project which began as an...

A Play for the Living in a Time of Extinction

by Directed by Anica Tomić, Written by Miranda Rose Hall (2022), Croatian National Theater in Zagreb, Croatia

The Yellow Frame Award for Sustainable Development, Science, and Education as part of the Sustainable Croatia project was awarded to Anica Tomić for the play A Play for the Living in the Age of Extinction, which premiered on June 26, 2022, based on the concept of...

A Play for the Living in a Time of Extinction

by Directed by Hsin-I Lin, Written by Miranda Rose Hall (2022), NTCH Taipei, Taiwan

This is a cross-border production without anybody having to travel abroad. Based on the original idea of Katie Mitchell, the internationally renowned theater director, this production, with sustainability and reduction of a carbon footprint as the ultimate goals, is...

A Play for the Living in a Time of Extinction

by Directed by Collectif Mensuel, Written by Miranda Rose Hall (2021), Théâtre de Liège, Belgium

Is sustainable theatre possible? This is the starting point for Katie Mitchell’s wild bet and the Sustainable Theatre? project, which she has designed in collaboration with Jérôme Bel and the Théâtre Vidy-Lausanne. The London-based director, who is an avid...

History of Ukraine

by AST Wroclaw (2022), Ukraine

This devised and documentary production was created by Ukrainian refugee actors in Poland after they had to leave Ukraine following the full-scale invasion of February 24th. It is about the war that started before February 24th. It is about the war being impossible to...

Opheliation

by Written by Mohammad Kazem Damghani, Directed by Melika Mirzaei and Mohammed Kazem Damghani, Gray Room Theatre (2021), Iran

Ophelation is inspired by Hamlet and Hamletmachine but goes beyond both works by doing a collective, yet casual, contemplation on Bard's Hamlet. After months of close reading, discussion, and rehearsal, and in search of new meanings and forms, the Iranian Gray Room...

Just Tell No ONe

by Directed by Igor Golyak, Written by Natal’ya Vorozhbit & Oksana Savchenko, Arlekin Players (2023), United States

Just Tell No One reveals the human consequences of war. The piece illuminates a part of the world where an incomprehensible set of rules is at play, and people struggle to make sense of the complexity of one another with life and death consequences. This...

DIG – DIG – FLAMING! ~ I Am Not a Robot

by Written and Directed by Suguru Yamamoto, Theater Collective Hanchu-Yuei (2022), Japan

THREE DAYS ONLY! April 21, 6 am EST /12pm CET - April 24, 6 pm EST / 12pm CET Can our times be laughed at and forgiven? The group offended people again and again. The people who offended them would mostly harass them remotely, but never in front of the group. A group...

Somos la guerra (We Are War)

by Directed by Luz Arcas, La Phàrmaco (2016), Spain

We Are War is a broken work, made of fragments, an apocryphal gospel that includes another vision of the myth, an unofficial account of the body that awaits the miracle: The announcement and the experience of motherhood are the triggers. The proposal is purely...

They Call Me, “Woman!”

by Written by Ayo Jaiyesimi, Thespian Family Theatre & Productions (2023), Nigeria

FOUR DAYS ONLY! April 17-18, 6 am EST /12pm CET - 6 am EST /12pm CET April 28-29, 6 am EST /12pm CET - 6 am EST /12pm CET All over the world, women have to delicately balance their various roles as birthers, nurturers, financial contributors, and in some cases, sole...

Țuhaus

by Based on Vlad Bălteanu's Story, Asociatia Reciproca (2017), Romania

Țuhaus is the story of Vlad Bălteanu. Narrated by himself, with emotion and self-irony, his story starts in the '90s, in the raw context of the post-revolutionary transition in Romania. It's a tale of the necessities generated by the transition, but more so, about the...

Burn the Music

by Written and Directed by He Shiyu, National Academy of Chinese Theatre Arts (NACTA, 2021), China

Burn the Music, an immersive Kunqu Opera, draws its story from the Chinese history of Anxi army, from the Tang dynasty. Instead of reproducing history, the artists perceive this as a chance to discuss a common topic — what do you do when the ambition is hard to...

Prometheus

by Directed by Nikos Karathanos, Onassis Stegi (2021), Greece

TWO DAYS ONLY: April 19, 6 am EST /12pm CET - April 21, 6 am EST / 12pm CET “But what has man always wanted? A roof and a fire, captive of both." Nikos Karathanos' Prometheus comes to give only a breath of freedom. The Caucasus does not exist here. No rock and no...

A Play for the Living in a Time of Extinction

by Directed by Martha Balthazar, Written by Miranda Rose Hall, NTGent (2022), Belgium

We're on the last run of a show that's been around for two years. But tonight, its performer can't go on stage. In her place, the dramaturg - in her 30s, afraid of death- addresses the audience and tries to resolve this tricky situation. “I'm just going to try to tell...

Felii (Slices)

by Written by Lia Bugnar, Teatrul Național Radu Stanca Sibiu (2020), Romania

One actress. Seven identities. And as many fascinating characters who invite the spectator in an alert incursion through the abysses of the female soul which suffers, loves, and forgives with the same intensity. Ofelia Popii gives us, through Lia Bugnar’s performance,...

ERUPTION – The Uprising is Not Over Yet

by Directed by Martha Kiss Perrone, coletivA ocupação (2022), Brazil

The coletivA ocupação creates in its second show a choreography of the impossible, a scene of Party and War, which starts from the image that crosses us: What is the end of the world for worlds that have ended long ago? 16 performers transfigure themselves throughout...

Study nº1: Life and Death

by Directed by Luiz Fernando Marques, Magiluth Group (2022), Brazil

THREE DAYS ONLY! April 24, 6 am EST /12pm CET - April 27, 6 pm EST / 12pm CET Based on the dramatic poem “Morte e Vida Severina,” by Joao Cabral de Melo Neto, Magiluth Group proposes a scenic study about the trajectory of Brazilian refugees that abandon the northeast...

Desfazenda: Bury Me Out of This Place

by Written by Lucas Moura, Directed by Roberta Estrela D`Alva, O Bonde Company (2021), Brazil

Desfazenda - Bury Me Out of This Place focuses its action on the story of characters 12, 13, 23, and 40, black people who as children were saved from the war by a white priest, and live on a farm, taking care of daily tasks, supervised by Zero, a kind of foreman. The...

Camming 101 Nights

by Written and Directed by Janaina Leite (2020), Brazil

An interactive and virtual performance that plays with the work structures of “camgirls” to promote “erotic" encounters. In this performance, Janaina Leite repeats the masked figure from her awarded work “Stabat Mater”, and challenges herself to learn “how to be a...

The Angle of Water 104.45°

by Concept by Timo Jokitalo, Minja Mertanen and Sanni Priha, Other Spaces (Toisissa tiloissa, 2021), Finland

Other Spaces Collectives video series The Angle of Water 104.45˚ invite spectators to try out different manifestations of water, and to approach the particularities of water as a chemical substance through bodily exercises. The series contains 8 episodes. In every...

Open My Sensitivity

by Directed by: Svitlana Dovletova, Juliia Bilinski and Nataliia Shapovalova, Student Theatre ANIMA (2023), Ukraine

The film based on a student's works from the disciplines «Shadow laboratory», «The dramaturgy of form», «The basis of stage improvisations», which was creating during distance learning. The plot of the film combines original works of different forms and techniques,...

Perfect Match

by Created by André Amálio and Tereza Havlíčková, Hotel Europa (2022), Portugal

TWO DAYS ONLY! April 28, 6 am EST /12pm CET - April 30, 6 pm EST / 12pm CET Perfect Match is a documentary theatre performance about the importance of love and relationships in the new migratory movements often seen as a threat in contrast with the gentrification...

Dear Shameless Death, Dirmit

by Written by Latife Tekin, Adapted to stage by Hakan Emre Ünal and Nezaket Erden, Tiyatro Hemhâl (2018), Turkey

THREE DAYS ONLY! April 27, 6 am EST /12pm CET - April 30, 6 pm EST / 12pm CET About the Novel: "Dreams that didn't come true shattered the people I was born and raised among… I struggled to keep up with the city. I was in bruises all over. As I struggled, I was...

The Book of Sirens

by Directed by Alex Borovenskiy, Performed by Anabell Ramirez, ProEnglish Theatre (2022), Ukraine

A performance of ProEnglish Theatre of Ukraine staged in the bomb shelter//theatre of Kyiv during March 2022. A story of the little German town of Molching being constantly bombed during World War II. A story of a little girl Liesel who learned to read in a bomb...

Jawnuta

by Music by Stanisław Moniuszko, Text by Władysław Ludwik Anczyc, Poznań Opera (2022), Poland

A great love that must defy prejudice. A secret kept hidden for years and a surprising denouement. The formidable force of memories unveils the mysteries of the past. Stach comes from a wealthy family, Chicha is a Gypsy. Social conventions, intolerance, and...

Strung Up at the Airport

by Written and Performed by Azadeh Kangarani (2018), Iran

Strung Up at the Airport is an autobiographical play about a woman who shares her stories about struggling with border officers at different airports because of being profiled based on her last name and country of origin. She also questions her identity and tries to...

Exit Strategies

by By APHIDS, Lead Artist Mish Grigor (2019), Australia

Exit Strategies is a solo performance work about mobility, privilege, and ways to disappear. Mish Grigor leaves. Again and again and again she leaves the stage, leaves the building, leaves the country. As she attempts a series of grand exits, her actions become more...

Caterina

by Written by Cristina Masoni, Directed by Amaia Azkue, Paroxa (2022), Spain

Caterina is a theatrical exploration of the life and legacy of Saint Catherine of Siena, the patron saint of Italy and Europe, and a Doctor of the Church. The show delves into the challenges and sacrifices that Catherine Benincasa faced throughout her life, as well as...

Anything & Everything

by Written by infinity and Jackson Castiglione, Platform Arts infinity Ensemble (2022), Australia

Young people’s lives are dominated by social media: selfies, meme cycles, video filters, “likes” and emojis. This screen culture defines their generation, but it’s a world often hidden from the adults in their lives. Set in a TV studio, Anything & Everything is a...

Memories of Overdevelopment

by Written by Caridad Svich, The Workshop Theater (2022), United States

Some plays are a quiet revolution about loud things. Some plays are about the stories we carry in our bones.This play is a film: a documentary about what people remember about dictatorships where they grew up and how they left and how they survived. An enactment of...

Macacos (Apes)

by Written and Directed by Clayton Nascimento, Cia do Sal (2016), Brazil

Macacos is a play that only has an actor and lipstick, and deals with the urgency of black life in Brazil. Prejudice against Black people is approached on stage based on the story of a Black man who seeks answers to the racism that surrounds his daily life and the...

Nihayati Niji Baatein with Geeta Tyagi (Intensely Intimate Conversations with Geeta Tyagi)

by Created by Jyoti Dogra, Serendipity Arts Festival (2020), India

Nihayati Niji Baatein explores one's inherent desire to connect, to be heard, and to be seen, which, in the world of social media, has morphed into a desire to pose, to present, and to exhibit a version of oneself. The desire is to open and reveal oneself set against...

STAGES

STAGES (Sustainable Theatre Alliance for a Green Environmental Shift) is an ambitious theatre experiment aiming to challenge how the cultural sector interacts with the concept of sustainability.14 influential theatre organizations, including a leading European theatre network, a theatre partner from Asia, and partners in academia, have joined together with director Katie Mitchell and choreographer Jérôme Bel – two artists that are renowned for embedding sustainability in their work – to test radical solutions to the biggest challenges posed by the climate crisis.

IOTF 2023 worked with the European Theater Convention to bring to online audiences five STAGES productions from theaters around the world of Miranda Rose Hall’s A Play for the Living in A Time of Extinction (2020).

First staged within this project by the British director Katie Mitchell at Théâtre Vidy Lausanne in Switzerland, this play is a purposeful eco-feminist monologue by Miranda Rose Hall that reflects on our responsibilities and means of action in the face of ecological disaster. The production has been taken on as an experiment in sustainable touring by theaters in Belgium, Croatia, Italy, Denmark, and Taiwan.

The supercut video above includes clips from all productions and further lays out the stakes of the project. It presents an overview of the ‘restaging’ process and offers insights into how sustainability can be integrated in the theatre, both in its content and production process.

A panel discussion (accessible below through the panels section) between key members from the various theaters explores the fascinating premises and concepts of the project around the issues of sustainability, touring, and what the theater can do in the midst of a climate crisis.