One day, Laura Jones was late to pick up her three-year-old daughter, Amy. Not a happy moment for the little girl, Jones’s tardiness would have a major impact on her career as a director. For the other passenger in her car was one Alan Schneider, whom Jones was chauffeuring around Denver, Colorado, in 1983. It was Amy’s completely justified attitude that altered, in Jones’s words, a “kind of a diva” Schneider into a “very lovely person.”^[1]Laura Jones, interview by author, July 11, 2024. Jones’s quotations are from my Zoom interview with her. Jones also provided me with archival documents, papers, and images to assist me in the … Continue reading

“She’s so angry,” Jones said, remembering her daughter’s reaction. “I was late again. . . . and Schneider found this hysterical. I mean, he really thought it was hilarious, and he, he melted. . . . So we bonded in a number of ways. . . . I got to know the man both onstage and off, and it was really quite pleasurable.”

Jones got the job as driver because she was a little older than the other graduate students at the University of Denver, where the Tony Award-winning director was guest lecturing in the theater department. Jones heard through the grapevine that she was one of only two students that impressed Schneider with the ability to be future directors. Jones took an interest in Schneider’s work and began attending some of his productions of Samuel Beckett’s plays (not, incidentally, her first love). At that point, Jones decided to approach Schneider and ask if she could write her doctoral dissertation on his directing of Samuel Beckett.

That was forty years ago. This past June, Jones, an Alton, Illinois, native, announced her retirement from directing. I was fortunate to see her final production—Waiting for Godot—at the Bas Bleu in Fort Collins, Colorado. My review of that show appears in the Fall 2024 issue of the Beckett Circle, but Jones’s retirement merits more attention than an estimation of her final play. As I learned in Fort Collins, she and a number of her colleagues have made Beckett a staple in that region of the United States.

Schneider gave Jones his permission to write about him. An eager Jones went to New York to see more of his work, including productions with Billie Whitelaw. Unfortunately, their time was cut very short. Only a few months after Jones started work on the dissertation, Schneider died in London, England. Jones only moved forward at the urging of her department. “Part of me said, ‘I don’t want to do this.’ . . . But my advisors at the University of Denver would not hear of it. . . . [They said], ‘You had his permission. Nobody else is going to have his permission again . . . so you need to run with this,’” Jones said. Run she did, interviewing the likes of Jean Schneider, Hume Cronyn, Jessica Tandy, John Lahr, and Edward Albee. “I think they were more candid about Alan because he was gone,” Jones said.

Jones earned her Ph.D. in Theater in 1989. In fact, she was the last student to do so, since the university closed the department while she was still completing her dissertation on Schneider and teaching speech and theater full-time at a community college. She then took a temporary teaching position at Colorado State University, later receiving tenure.

Top from left: James Burns as Vladimir and Dan Tschirhart as Estragon. Below: Matthew Smith as Pozzo (front) and Ryan Wilke-Braun as Lucky. Bas Bleu Theatre, Fort Collins, Colorado. Photo by William A. Cotton, courtesy of the Bas Bleu Theatre.

Jones learned much from Schneider, including the importance of art and image in Beckett’s work.^[2]Jones discusses Schneider’s theories of music, art, and image in the introduction to her dissertation. See Laura Jones, Introduction, in Alan Schneider’s Direction of Selected Monologue Works by … Continue reading Schneider also taught her about the need to provide specific circumstances for actors to do their thing.^[3]For a fuller discussion, see Jones, Introduction, 8-18. She makes sure to point out that she is not a publishing scholar; rather, she calls herself a “research practitioner.” She appreciates scholarly readings of Beckett’s work and has been part of many academic conferences, but she sees a difference between an interpretation on paper and a production on the boards. “I would take the research and then try to apply it in practice,” Jones said.

Jones indeed has been a practitioner. Throughout the 1990s, she produced a number of Beckett plays, some at CSU but others at the Petite Bas Bleu (the original incarnation of what is now the Bas Bleu). She met one of the key people of her theater life in Wendy Ishii, co-founder with Eva Wright of the Petite Bas Bleu. In an email, Ishii writes of Jones, “Laura takes huge risks and tackles challenging works. . . . Many of our awards and international acclaim can be attributed to Laura’s direction, academic research, and deep commitment to the craft.”^[4]Wendy Ishii, email message to author, July 22, 2024. Perhaps their most important work together was Happy Days. Jones directed, and Ishii starred. Beckett scholar Linda Ben-Zvi, who was a member of the CSU English Department at the time, loved the production. “Long story short, she [Ben-Zvi] was blown away. She really thought that Wendy had nailed it,” Jones said. Ben-Zvi encouraged Jones and Ishii to present Happy Days at a major Beckett conference in Toronto, Canada.^[5]For a review of the production, see Eric Prince, “Review: Happy Days, directed by Laura Jones, with Wendy Ishii as Winnie and Morris Burns as Willie, staged by Bas Bleu Theatre (Colorado State … Continue reading

Her Endgame in a swimming pool might be the most bizarre of Jones’s creations. Jones stumbled upon the venue—an abandoned indoor pool at CSU filled with old furniture and random items—haphazardly. She and her students then went to work. “And what we did was we created this stage, this space, for Endgame with the found objects in the space, so it was found objects in a found space,” Jones said. Of the acoustics, Jones said, “The sound. The sound was amazing because it was like singing in the shower, you know? . . . and we put the play in the deep end, and the audience sat in the shallow end, natural rake.”

Jones gained a reputation and soon directed a stage production of Beckett’s short 1980s text Ill Seen Ill Said in Kent, England, at the request of Ruby Cohn and Ben-Zvi for the International Foundation for Theatre Research. Jones produced the play with the set design skills of Robert Braddy and help from her daughter (upset Amy now a teenager). The audience contained a number of major Beckett scholars, including James Knowlson, to whom Jones credits much of her success. “I was scared to death. I mean, I just thought, this is the best we got, guys,” Jones said. She was soon relieved when she saw Cohn “with tears in her eyes, and she just gives me this gigantic hug,” Jones said.

Eric Prince, another of Jones’s colleagues in theater at CSU and Beckett scholar, established the Center for Beckett Studies in 2002. In 2008, the Center co-sponsored The Beckett Project. Jones directed Happy Days, Play, Rough for Theatre II, Ill Seen Ill Said, and A Piece of Monologue (she involved CSU students in some of these productions), and Knowlson delivered a talk on Happy Days and modern art. Jones used some of Knowlson’s research for her Beckett Project productions, which experimented with Beckett’s original ideas. For example, Jones said Caravaggio influenced their use of light on the stage. Ever a research practitioner, Jones shared her experimentations with other scholars at a conference in Santiago, Chile.

From left: Ryan Wilke-Braun as Lucky, Matthew Smith as Pozzo, James Burns as Vladimir, and Dan Tschirhart as Estragon in Waiting for Godot. Bas Bleu Theatre, Fort Collins, Colorado. Photo by William A. Cotton, courtesy of the Bas Bleu Theatre.

Throughout her career, Jones has ventured beyond Beckett and produced musicals and children’s theater. She retired from teaching in 2018, but she had yet other aspirations as a director. I count myself lucky to have attended her last effort on the stage, Waiting for Godot at the Bas Bleu. I asked her about some of her choices, including references to Russia and the inclusion of a railway cart. What I learned is that Jones is not a stern, Pozzo-like director or one whose vision others must not interfere with. Quite the opposite: she gives credit to her team and listens to their ideas. She has a vision and clear ideas of where to commence, but she’s also a “what if?” type. “I don’t know exactly how I want to do this. I just know I don’t want to do it the way it’s always been done, alright?” Jones said.

Jones referenced Richard Eyre’s theories of Beckett and Brecht as she developed her Godot. She also asked questions Schneider taught her to ask: “How do you perform the act of waiting unless you’ve got some place to wait?” Jones said. Part of Jones’s doctrine is to provide actors with some precision rather than total ambiguity.

Regarding Russia, Jones explained her thinking: “Yeah, maybe these guys were fleeing Ukraine. Who knows? . . . I didn’t want to be blatant about it. I wanted that to be, if anything, very subconscious, and I certainly didn’t want to put it in the program notes and say, ‘Okay, look for this.’” In the end, Russia served as a “unifying nub or core.”

The handcart at center stage was the idea of scenic designer Roger Hanna. Jones expounded on its purpose: “[I]t took me a while to realize that it was the stone, it was the rock,” referring to Beckett’s revised text.^[6]Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot: Revised Text, in The Theatrical Notebooks of Samuel Beckett Vol. 1: Waiting for Godot, eds. James Knowlson and Dougald McMillan, Grove, 2019, 9. Jones also said the cart was an impetus for drama, “to give [the characters] an obstacle.”

With the same spirit that yielded Endgame in a defunct pool, Jones saw Godot to fruition. “[B]y the end of the run, I was like, I’m satisfied. I am. I am satisfied with this production,” Jones said.

The most extraordinary event, however, occurred during the rehearsal process. After a particularly bad day for some of the cast and crew, they came in the following day to see actual leaves had grown on the supposedly dead tree they cut down from Ishii’s property and planted in the floor of the Bas Bleu. “Overnight, overnight, it had sprung leaves!” Jones said. “I was like, Sam, what are you doing?”

The full version of the article Director Laura Jones’ Career-Long Exploration Of Beckett Concludes With “Godot” is available on The Theatre Times.

Back in 2019, I decided to write a book about the Leeds Playhouse. “Why?”, my friends asked me; “Because no one else has done so”, was often my reply. The Playhouse was about to celebrate its 50^th Anniversary. As my nearest regional repertory theatre, and one of the biggest in England, I felt it important to record its history. In beginning my research, I was very fortunate to find that all the theatre’s archives had been transferred to Leeds University Library.

As my research progressed (delayed, of course, by Covid 19) I found myself asking questions about regional producing theatres more generally: how should they differ from local receiving theatres; who should they exist to serve; how do you measure their success? I was fortunate in being able to ask these questions to both Artistic Directors and others who had worked to make the Leeds Playhouse what some saw as the National Theatre of the North.

Finally published in September 2024, the book evolved less as an historical record, more a case study of a regional producing theatre. The Playhouse has had the same opportunities and also faced the same challenges as other such theatres up and down the country. In doing so, they have had to contend with far less funding than their national equivalents. For example, when the Leeds Playhouse moved to its present building in 1990 (and became the West Yorkshire Playhouse), in that year the theatre staged the same number of productions as the National Theatre in London, and more of these were world premieres. The biggest difference, however, was in Arts Council England funding. In 1990-1991 the National Theatre received a grant of £9,140,000; the Leeds Playhouse received just £600,000.

Productions

Whatever else goes on at regional producing theatres, what happens on the stage(s) matters the most. And the roots, of course, of many such theatres was ‘true repertory’ – several productions being staged in the same week by a company of actors. Audiences welcomed the opportunity to see the same actors in a range of parts. In turn, many actors acknowledge how their careers benefited from such work. Ian McKellen, for example, talks proudly of the first four years of his professional career at theatres in Coventry, Ipswich and Nottingham. Unfortunately, the Playhouse, like most other theatres, had to abandon true repertory after just four years – for financial, not artistic reasons.

Particularly in the years that Jude Kelly was Artistic Director (1990 – 2002) Playhouse audiences were treated to many world premieres, including plays by Trevor Griffiths, Wole Soyinka, Kay Mellor, Irvine Welsh, and John Godber. More often, however, productions are regional premieres, often following London runs. Nevertheless, for most audiences they represent the first opportunity to see these plays, travelling costs and ticket prices making London visits impossible. And just like the National Theatre, regional theatres feel a responsibility to produce classic plays, from Racine to Rattigan. Shakespeare plays are also seen as essential, and not just because of school party income. ‘Big names’ help here; as early as 1974 the Playhouse attracted Paul Scofield to The Tempest, a production which transferred to London and achieved the record of the longest continuous run of a Shakespeare play in the West End. Since then, the Playhouse has seen actors including Ian McKellen, Warren Mitchell, Tim Pigott-Smith and Lenny Henry in leading Shakespeare roles. In 2002, Christopher Eccleston and Maxine Peake both made their Shakespeare stage debuts in Hamlet.

As well as providing golden opportunities for actors at the start of their careers, directors have also benefited in a similar way. For those who go on to become Artistic Directors elsewhere, regional producing theatres also give experience of theatre management. John Harrison, who was Artistic Director at the Leeds Playhouse between 1972 and 1990, was proud to have given a ‘bunk up’ to younger directors. His list includes Michael Attenborough and Nick Hytner. In later years, the theatre kickstarted the careers of Matthew Warchus, Vicky Featherstone and Nikolai Foster.

Local productions

Arguably, a successful regional theatre is also one that gives opportunities to local writers, producing work which often concerns local themes. If this is too much of a risk for a theatre’s main stage, such plays can be mounted in smaller studio spaces. In this respect, however, the Playhouse is different. The move to the West Yorkshire Playhouse in 1990 created two auditoria, one seating 750 people, the other an adaptable space allowing for up to 350 people. New work has been seen in both auditoria, and since 2019 in a third, smaller space.

Local writers and local themes are important for regional theatres in meeting the challenge of attracting audiences which reflect the ethnic groups in the communities served. Local themes can also attract audiences new to theatre. For example, in 2016 the Playhouse staged a version of David Peace’s novel, The Damned United, about Brian Clough’s short period as manager of Leeds United. Unsurprisingly, audiences were largely made up of football fans!

Community Work

Through community plays, regional theatres can attract local people not just into the audiences but onto the stage as well. The Playhouse has staged productions ranging from one about the history of Quarry Hill, where the theatre is located, to Carnival Messiah. The latter involved a fifty-strong community chorus, three sperate twenty-strong children’s choruses, twenty gospel singers, and twenty members of a steel band.

In addition to their programme of productions, successful regional theatres are ones where much more goes on as well. Work with children and young people is given a high priority in this respect. Youth Theatre groups are currently popular, including at the Playhouse where members are quite often involved in main stage productions. Prior to this work, the Playhouse operated one of the country’s leading Theatre In Education companies.

At the first Leeds Playhouse, there was a feeling that ‘something’s always going on’, and not just bar and restaurant provision. There were art exhibitions, concerts, and film showings (often starting at 11:15 p.m. after the evening performance of a play!). Since the opening of the West Yorkshire Playhouse in 1990, the theatre has supported ‘Heydays’, a weekly day of arts activities for older people, attracting five hundred members in its first year. More recently, the Playhouse has pioneered work for people living with dementia. It now has a Beautiful Octopus Club for people with learning disabilities. In 2014 the Playhouse became the first Theatre of Sanctuary, a national award in recognition of its work with refugees.

Ian McKellen in the West Yorkshire (now Leeds) Playhouse production of The Tempest, staged in 1999. (c) Tim Smith.

Cutting costs

Throughout the years of the first Leeds Playhouse (1970 -1990) almost all of the plays and musicals staged were in-house productions. There was an astonishing number of these: the end of 1979 saw the theatre’s one-hundredth production. Nevertheless, even by then it became necessary to start reducing their frequency, to reduce the cost of mounting these, and to look for plays with smaller casts. And soon after the move to the West Yorkshire Playhouse, the theatre began to depend on co-productions. These are those for which one theatre leads in terms of direction, scenery, costumes and all other production matters, but these costs are shared between one of more other theatres. The Playhouse regularly co-produces, for example, with the Birmingham Repertory Theatre. The Playhouse also became involved in co-productions with theatre companies such as Northern Broadsides and Kneehigh Theatre.

The Playhouse also began mounting co-productions with commercial theatre organisations; these were often ones for which a London transfer was planned. The beauty of these is that the theatre gains a steady income when transfers happen as planned, or when a production goes on to tour nationally. The best example here is The Thirty-Nine Steps, which ran for nine years in London’s West End; there followed a two-year run on Broadway; since then there have been UK tours and productions across the world.

That there is a Leeds Playhouse owes much to a small group of people who campaigned, in the 1960s, for a regional producing theatre in the city. These people were clear about who the theatre should be for.  They wanted a ‘people’s theatre’. They wanted to reach people from disadvantaged communities, to attract working class families. Choices of productions would be crucial in this respect. But from the start, Artistic Directors have been torn between on the one hand taking risks in deciding what plays to stage, and on the other hand mounting productions which are more likely to guarantee good audiences and good income.

Regional theatres in England are also heavily dependent on grant-funding: in Leeds the City Council (and before its demise, West Yorkshire County Council) and the Arts Council. Such funding has almost always only been decided from year to year, making longer-term planning almost impossible, and causing a precarious existence when grants start to become reduced. On more than one occasion, only emergency grant-funding and other one-off income has prevented insolvency. In this respect the Playhouse is no different to most other producing theatres.

Over the years, theatres have introduced various subscription schemes to attract regular attendances and loyal audiences. In Leeds, even when this has been successfully achieved, it is questionable as to whether these audiences are the ones those early campaigners wanted to attract. Indeed, a 2010 business plan argued for attracting regular attendances from the more affluent areas of the city on the basis that influential people live there, who generate good income.

Covid 19 lead to theatres remaining closed for long periods of time, and once again only government emergency and recovery funding saved theatres from going under. Since then, theatres have looked for new ways to survive. Some have continued to stream live performances. Others, including the Playhouse, have concentrated on musical revivals rather than new writing. Once again, however, it is necessary to ask the question – what is the role of regional producing theatres?  Concentrating on musical revivals simply mirrors an increasing priority of commercial theatres (and the West End of London continues to be dominated by these). Equally, in producing plays, regional theatres now have to contend with the increasing popularity of National Theatre Live: big budget productions and star casts. People can easily see these at their local cinema, and ticket prices are considerably cheaper too!

Leeds Playhouse, A Tale of Two Theatres by Dave Stannard is published by Naked Eye Publishing.

The full version of the article Regional Producing Theatres In England. Leeds Playhouse: A Case Study is available on The Theatre Times.

For many Iranians, the contemporary history of the country is divided into before and after September 16, 2022, the day Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old young woman, was killed in the custody of the morality police (for not having what was called the proper hijab). In response to this incident, people all over the country came to the streets to protest against the regime that has used the mandatory hijab law as an excuse to suppress women for more than forty years since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. The scope of these protests went far beyond what was imagined and continued for more than six months. Unsurprisingly, such large-scale protests spread to Iranian theatres, especially since the very first days, many theatre practitioners were jailed for participating.

In an early reaction, published as a signed statement on social media, protesting practitioners announced that they would no longer participate in the “production and spectatorship” of works where women must wear the mandatory hijab.^[1]https://www.iranintl.com/202211231437 Following this, there was a severe and widespread discussion about the “theatre ban” among practitioners. Those in favor of the ban stopped working in official theatre spaces or watching state-sanctioned plays that were staged under supervision and in compliance with dictated criteria. In their view, the actions happening on the streets (from rallies to women’s resistance to wearing the compulsory hijab in public despite all the dangers) are much more progressive than the censored and passive performances in official theatres where they have to hide their words in “metaphors” and allegories.^[2]For example see this interview with Iranian playwright and director, Ali Shams: … Continue reading

On the other hand, the artists who opposed the ban on theatre and the halt of artistic activities by theatre groups saw this as a form of self-imposed exile.^[3]In November, 2022 during a performance directed by Golab Adineh, a prominent Iranian actress and director, a significant confrontation occurred between the supporters and opponents of continuing the … Continue reading They argued that emptying the stages of practitioners and closing the theatre is precisely what the state has been seeking for.^[4]See: … Continue reading However, proponents of the official theatre ban argued that alternative spaces can act as a solution to keep the art alive and turn the performances into protest actions.

Utilizing alternative spaces has been a familiar tactic of Iranian artists (in all disciplines) in response to restrictive supervision imposed on them as a result of the regulations set during the Cultural Revolution (1980-1983).^[5]In her seminal work, Alternative Iran: Contemporary Art and Critical Spatial Practice (2022), Pamela Karimi describes and categorizes the different tactics used by Iranian artists to circumvent … Continue reading However, a significant difference is evident. Previously, underground performances were confined to private spaces like apartments and private parking lots, with limited accessibility to only a few people. Now, they are frequently organized in more public settings, such as non-governmental cultural centers that endorse this movement, enabling a much larger audience to participate. Knowing these facts, when I traveled to Tehran in June 2024 to participate in some of these performances, I was still unsure what changes I would experience in the atmosphere of Iranian theatre after being away for two years.^[6]In order to protect theatre artists based in Tehran, I refrain from sharing any names or identifying information.

The first question that came to my mind was: where are these performances taking place, and how can I get tickets? I soon realized that theatre groups use social media to share information about their performances. However, in the posts and stories shared by people affiliated with the group, there is often no mention of the location or time of the performance or any details about the performers. Instead, they would only introduce one person (a connection) tagged in that post or story. Then, after introducing themselves to the connection and buying tickets,^[7]There are also events that spectators can attend for free without buying a ticket. For example, I attended a one-person show festival held in a café in the north of Tehran. In the limited space … Continue reading the audience will be informed of the time and place of the performances.

The strange and paradoxical fact is that, unlike in the past, many of these shows are not performed in private spaces but in cultural centers that have received official permission from the state’s Ministry of Culture for their activities. Therefore, these centers, while officially licensed for their activities, have ironically become the primary locations for unlicensed performances through their licensed activities. Most of these cultural centers are situated in aged structures within the heart of Tehran, which formerly served as residential dwellings before their conversion. Usually, these centers have designated spaces for theatrical performances, which can be located in various places such as rooms, basements, or yards, depending on the building’s architecture.

In the absence of proper lighting, sound, or other facilities in these spaces, many theatre groups try to have site-specific performances by tailoring their ideas to the spaces to which they have access. In one of the performances held in a basement, at the show’s beginning, the female performer/dancer was seated on a chair on a concrete platform that was part of the room. Due to the basement’s low ceiling, the performer was practically trapped in a bent and very uncomfortable position. This spatial limitation and the struggle to free from it had become the main idea of ​​this performance. Then, when the performer could pull herself up and get down from the chair, she freely explored and familiarized herself with the entire basement space. In the end, when she noticed a hatch in the ceiling, she pulled herself up from it and left the basement.

Some groups have used the “theatre ban” and withdrawal from state-sponsored events as themes in their performances. In one of the most impressive shows I saw, the performers—all the actual directors who had withdrawn from participating in the state-sponsored Fadjr Theatre Festival in protest —were acting as festival judges, reporting the details of shows that were never performed. The judges explained that among the artists who had withdrawn from performing in this festival, a young woman named Ayna (Ghotbi Yaghoubi) was supposed to perform a play called We Burned, You Burned, They Burned. After explaining Ayna’s idea for her show in detail, they noted that she passed away from cancer before she had another opportunity to perform her show. Then, the performers, in the role of judges of a festival that was never held, presented the prize for that edition of the festival to Ayna.

Underground theatre artists do not adhere to the government’s dress codes and freely address topics that are censored on official stages due to constant surveillance and censorship. For years, artists had to find ways to indirectly or discreetly portray intimate relationships and sexual issues or avoid them altogether. Now, in the more liberated environment of underground theatre, some are bravely addressing sex openly and directly. The performers do not feel the necessity to appeal to euphemism while discussing sexual matters, and, although it is not common, sometimes they even go so far as to risk experiencing some degrees of nudity and intimacy in front of the audience.

In one of the performances, which seemed like a collage of the different characters’ lives gathered together at a party, we got access to the most private moments of their lives. At the beginning, the audience entered the dance scene of a party where men and women danced passionately with each other. Contrary to the expected standards of the official Iranian theatre, they danced together in close contact. This extended scene continued until the abusive behavior of a male actor bothered her female dance partner. The young woman, who initially seemed happy dancing with him, gradually grew more and more uncomfortable until she suddenly started slapping her abusive companion, which brought the party to a halt. After that, in separate episodes, we learned the inner fears of those present at the party. In one episode, a partially unclothed female performer expressed her concerns about her body while getting dressed for the party.

Performing without government permits has allowed Iranian artists to participate in activities and gain experiences that were previously impossible, even if they may seem trivial and simple. In a conversation I had with an actress friend of mine, she told me that the first time she performed on stage without the mandatory hijab, she felt as if a new organ had been added to her body, which she still could not control well on stage. Despite that, she believed her hair would give her new acting capabilities.

The underground setting has also enabled artists to explore the dynamics of close interaction between male and female actors and the possibility of physical contact on the stage, which the state has strictly forbidden for more than four decades. In one of the shows, two actors, a woman and a man, played the roles of a couple. The woman’s character had died in a car crash, and the man, who was a writer, felt guilty because he had imagined her death in one of his stories and now blamed himself for her tragic ending. The actors combined everyday movements with dance and freely touched and held each other’s hands. Their close interaction allowed for delicate movements, conveying the characters’ lost intimate relationship, which could easily be lost with a lack of physical contact.

It is because of these freedoms in choosing the topics and the way of expressing them that many performers and, of course, spectators, despite all the risks, prefer attending small underground spaces to professional venues. However, as they expand and gain more attention, there is always a risk that state regulators will take a more stringent stance to suppress and deter underground experiences. With the establishment of a semi-reformist government in July 2024 and the relative moderation of the cultural atmosphere, some artists who have not been active since September 2022 are expected to once again return to the official theatre stages. However, it seems unlikely that all of this will have an impact on the growth of the burgeoning underground trend, which has provided a new direction for Iranian theatre artists.

The full version of the article Report From The Underground: A New Iranian Theatre is available on The Theatre Times.

Theatre for broadly understood young audiences (0-16 years) is one of the most important cultural practices. It is future-focused and based on human rights, specifically, the right to performance and children’s rights to participate in cultural and artistic activities and have a say in the decision-making process about these activities. Yet, its importance hardly ever is matched by prestige, funding, reviews, and recognition of its artistic value. Fortunately, events like the biannual Przegląd Nowego Teatru dla Dzieci (New Theatre for Children Festival) organized by the Wrocław Puppetry Theatre (Poland) are a reminder of the young audience theatre’s cultural, social, and political potential, its artistic value, experimentation, and artistry and skills it takes to engage young spectators.

The 7th edition of the festival had a motto: WY-GRA-MY W TEATRZE. This literally translates as “We will win in theatre.” The motto also plays on the syllables “wy” (plural you), “gra” (play, enact), and my (we), bringing multiple aspects of interconnections between audiences, theatres, creators, and the world. This was clearly a dramaturgical core in the programming. In seven days, between the 6th and 12th of June, artists from Poland, Germany, Slovakia, Norway, and other countries performed 17 shows in multiple languages, including multilingual works, aimed at spectators as young as a few months and those that are nearly adults. The Wrocław Puppetry Theatre also organized 33 workshops (700 people participated) and multiple post-show discussions. The productions included musicals, puppetry shows, small-form theatres, and immersive works. They focused on themes such as human-nature relations, sickness, climate change, war, gender, migration, divorce, disability, and new media. It was a celebration of young audiences.

Sprzedawcy bajek. Photo by Natalia Kabanow.

The festival opened with the premiere of Sprzedawcy bajek (+7, The Sellers of Fairytales) by the Wrocław Puppetry Theatre directed by its artistic director Jakub Krofta and written by the theatre’s literary director Maria Wojtyszko. It was a perfect opening to the festival and carried a message that stories do not have to be real to change the world. The tension between imagined, constructed, and real was also explored in another production by Wojtyszko-Krofta: Perfekty i Ambaras (+6) from the Pleciuga Theatre (Szczecin, Poland). Telling an engaging story of two conflicted boys, Perfekty and Ambaras, who became brothers as their parents got married, the show staged the difficulties of becoming a “real” family and – through fairytale metaphors – made some (in)direct references to the current humanitarian situation at the Poland-Belarus border. However, its final message was about the ability of words, names, and stories to shape human attitudes and reality around us.

The language theme appeared in multiple productions. We come from far, far away (+10, New International Encounter Theatre, Norway/Czechia/UK) played with various languages, including Polish as (most of) the spectators’ language, to talk about migration, fear, violence against migrants, and what it means to welcome someone. Alex Byrne and Kjell Moberg directed the piece.

We come from far, far away. Photo by Premysl Bukovsky, Arash Ghavidel, Romana Kovacsova.

Multilingualism also appeared in Dziwna Wiosna (+7, Strange Spring) from the Collegium Nobilium Theatre in Warsaw. Directed by Magdalena Małecka-Wippich, the show staged stories written by Ukrainian Oleg Mychajłow after the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Dziwna Wiosna never used the word “war.” Instead, it focused on the war experiences of animals and children who did not know what war was and did not have words for it. The performers (Justyna Fabisiak, Elżbieta Nagel, Piotr Kramer) performed nearly exclusively in Polish. Still, their characters spoke different languages; thus, sometimes two actors speaking Polish performed two characters who could not understand each other. This Brian-Friel-Translations-like mechanism added another layer to the production’s key theme. It also unintentionally invited a very political statement from the children in the audience (mostly around 6-7 years of age). When telling the story of a giraffe born in Berlin’s zoo, the actors asked: “What language do they speak in Germany?” Multiple kids shouted: Russian. It was difficult not to link this to how Poland’s public discourse has repeatedly described Germany’s posture in the war between Russia and Ukraine as overly lenient towards Russia.

Multiple languages also appeared in Ja goryl, ty człowiek (+ 4, Me Gorilla, You Human) from the Opole Puppetry Theatre. Ja goryl, ty człowiek – directed by Czech Marek Zákostelecký and written by Elżbieta Chowaniec – was inspired by Gorilla Koko and her ability to speak American Sign Language. The puppetry production featured realistic bunraku-like puppets of Koko (which changed as she aged). It included Polish Sign Language, both as one of the performance languages and through the presence of an interpreter. The show also had live audio descriptions. The presence of Polish Sign Language and audio descriptions and their importance were explained at the start of the performance and meta-narrated throughout.

Sometimes, multilingualism appeared through the pre-show and post-show discussions. For example, at the start of Gold Diggers, a virtual puppetry piece by the Puppentheater Zwickau theatre (+10 Germany), the spectators and the facilitator negotiated the language in which the piece was going to be performed. The live negotiations enhanced the liveness of the experience: spectators shared the space and time, put on the virtual reality goggles and were asked to play start at the same time. But it was also a pre-recorded work in which one felt simultaneously present – feeling facilitated by the virtual reality and the 360 experience – and absent, as one could not see one’s body in the virtual reality or do anything to impact the action. A lively discussion afterwards engaged with these feelings and what theatre meant in today’s world.

Many productions featured and explored different ideas on fatherhood, speaking to the (finally) changing ideas on masculinity in relation to parenthood. Shows like Tata (+5, Arlekin Theatre, Łódź) and Drapando (+6, Theatre Academy Wrocław) showed caring fathers who (co)parent their children; other productions – like Gdzie jest tata? (Where is Daddy?) evoked discussions about representation of parenthood, and considering young audiences.

In the case of Tomasz Maśląkowski’s Tata from the Arelkin Theatre from Łódź (Poland)– performed with bunraku puppets and adapted from the famous Dutch book Mijn Vader (My Father) by Toon Tellegen – the father was the main caring figure. In Drapando – directed by Zofia Pinkiewicz and based on a play co-written by Szymon Jachimek and Jana Jachimek (father and daughter) about their own experiences – the audience encountered a story of a girl with atopic dermatitis (AD) and her family. Together, they fought the disease with medicine, stories, and journeys to the US (again playing here with language), but finally grew to learn to live with AD. Drapando was, for me, one of the festival’s highlights. Young director Zofia Pinkiewicz – while focusing on the young protagonist – managed to tell stories of all family members and their struggles: mother, father, and the youngest brother. At the same time, the show was light, funny, and engaging for spectators of different ages.

Another theme was the audience and their agency themselves. In some cases, the theme was not directly explored the show, but arouse through discussions after the show. Other theatre works focused on facilitating the agency of the youngest spectator to encounter the world and theatre works in their own way. The great example of that was Púpätko (Doughnut) for kids older than 6 months and younger than 3 years from the Jána Palárika Theatre (Trnava, Slovakia) and directed by Polish Alicja Morawska-Rubczak. Púpätko used theatre as a lens to, together with its spectators, study nature, human-nature relations, but also actor-spectator interactions.

The festival was documented in detail, and the photographer worked hard to catch the most intimate moments of spectators encountering the works. I wondered about the tension between the need to document – for funders, researchers, media – and the children’s right to privacy, to keep their experiences in the moment they occurred without being constantly documented… The contemporary world puts so much pressure on theatres (worldwide) to “evidence their impact”. What are ethical implications of such requirement and using images to tell stories the children have no agency over? I do not have a good answer for that as it clearly needs to be systemic. But the question has stayed with me.

It was also an element we debated with students from the University of Amsterdam and the University of Wrocław. Throughout the festival they worked together, supervised by me and Justyna Kowal. Negotiating across their different languages, situated knowledge, and diverse ideas on theatre and scenic truth, they wrote reviews separately and sometimes together, finding new formats. They worked under the time pressure as they had to deliver the first draft within 24h. The article links some of their reviews that can also be found here. Others can be accessed through the festival’s website.

The full version of the article It Takes Artistry to Make Theatre for Young Audiences: New Theatre for Children Festival, Wrocław 2024 is available on The Theatre Times.

Artistic practice, which allows for the creation and re-creation of social spaces as testing grounds for shaping communities, is an important means of socio-cultural expression, participation, and dialogue. In line with this idea, “acting as social practice” captures the essence of my artistic work and socio-political and educational concerns. With my fictional character, the stereotypical Arab man, “Ahmad Al Ahmad,” I have been advocating intercultural dialogue, diversity, and participation since 2019. As an “intercultural sensitizer,” I encourage different audience groups to push the boundaries of acceptance for themselves and others and to question prejudices – always embedded in an immersive comedy program.

Background

In Germany, identity has long played a central role in the immigration debate. The construction of concepts for a German identity is taking place under concrete historical-social conditions, impacting migrants’ experiences in Germany strongly as they are often the object of the debate rather than being perceived as agents in their own right. As long as these conditions are excluded from reflection, they will continue to affect migrant communities adversely.

The political term ‘Leitkultur,’ which can be translated as guiding or leading culture, repeatedly proves particularly problematic. Originally conceptualized to envision a core set of (Western) values that a community can agree upon in a dynamic consensus, the term has come to encompass static norms and traditions considered fundamental to a society’s identity. This concept is used as a ‘combat term’ in relation to integration, immigration, and national identity, especially concerning cultural values constructed as static and exclusive norms that newcomers should adopt or assimilate into when living in Germany. Leitkultur is typically decided by the majority white society and involves distinct elements of “othering” of communities with diverging backgrounds.

With statistics showing that today, almost 23 of 81 million people in Germany have experienced migration or have migration stories, the concept of a supposedly static German national identity is not only challenged but cannot be upheld. “New Germans” are increasingly making themselves heard and are at the forefront of shaping an inclusive, hyperdiverse, and dynamic new identity. This, in turn, is highly contested not only in right wing but also in mainstream conservative political discourse, and the process is far from completed. Unlike the United States, Germany is still struggling to come to terms with the reality of being a de facto immigrant society.

The Role of Theater

In my theatrical practice, I use the concept of Leitkultur and its implications as a basis for my interventions.

As shown before, political discourse in Germany does not run without friction and conflicts, causing a cultural shock among Germans who feel disoriented and helpless when exposed to what they perceive as foreign or alien. This culture shock is assumed to lead to loss of identity – a scenario that is more threatening for people with migration experience, but – provocatively or positively speaking – at the same time potential ground for dialogue where interrelated fears can be addressed on eye level.

Ahmad Al Ahmad – Die Show [EN: Ahmad Al Ahmad – The Show], by Haytham Hmeidan.

In my one-person show, Ahmad al Ahmad – The Show, I aim to emphasize that intercultural communication requires individuals to be aware of their own ideas and understanding of identity. This awareness affects their everyday practices, encounters, and interactions, as well as political debates. In modern societies, people belong to many different “subworlds.” Increased mobility has reduced the importance of the regional-spatial principle, leading to new, potentially enriching, but possibly threatening cultural experiences and a longing for home or feeling of loss. This is where the concept of a static or essential identity substituting older, multilayered spatial or social systems of belonging draws its virulence from.

In my theater work, I seek to question traditional standards used to decide who belongs in Germany, emphasizing citizenship rather than (essentialist) cultural factors or regional continuity. By prioritizing legal principles, I hope to provide a more transparent and fair understanding of German identity and inclusion in a society where many “Arabs” or “Turks” and others have long become citizens.

I want to emphasize the importance of recognizing the diverse reality of migrants and people with migrant history in Germany today. It’s essential to address the challenges faced by German society in relation to social and international developments, including globalization and Germany’s role as a destination for migrants. Rather than framing resulting challenges as specific migrant problems, it’s important to acknowledge that all individuals who are unwilling to confront their own insecurities and concerns about perceived “others” or “aliens” may feel threatened and may develop negative stereotypes about perceived adversaries, while the most pressing challenges are global and can only be addressed together.

Engaging the Audience

In my practice, I emphasize that the integration and self-realization of migrants cannot be achieved solely through political demands or within the private sphere. Instead, it requires a collective effort and eye-level dialogue within society, where diverse voices are heard and attributed with agency. Ahmad, in the show, engages with all elements of his “Arab” identity in interaction with members of the surrounding “German” society, leading to comic effects. Ahmad’s true power lies in his realization of helplessness to affect larger societal structures, transferring the tension to the spectators of the host society and opening new spaces of dialogue and understanding by questioning established perspectives and shifting assumptions.

A Pedagogical Approach

In terms of Augusto Boal’s concept of the Theater of the Oppressed, my approach is a pedagogical practice with political intentions. Ahmad faces European forms of suppression, such as loneliness and the inability to communicate with others. He works with methods of intercultural communication originally designed for intercultural training in the business world. This includes understanding cultural identity, verbal and non-verbal communication, values and norms, status, the difference between pity and respect, and power sharing.

My theatrical interventions aim to create a space outside dualistic models to categorize individuals as either “us” or “aliens” in the ongoing migration debate in Germany, by opening the path to what I call, a third culture. This space gathers both ends of the spectrum: the receiving society and people with migrant stories. By combining artistic input and theater’s pedagogical approaches, I aim to broaden perspectives, open spaces for new experiences, and build bridges. My show does not stop at telling a story of migration and the experiences Ahmad had as a refugee. On a deeper level, it attempts to create a space where culture can be shared and adapted. I achieve this by engaging the public through a range of immersive elements during the show, sometimes irritating and sometimes aimed at making rarely heard voices audible but always within a safe space moderated softly by the outwardly humble or naive figure of Ahmad.

The processing of difficult topics and dealing with societal challenges benefits additionally from the combination of stage comedy with additional formats ranging from politically framed panel discussions to workshops that take up questions brought up during the show. Social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube provide further means of reaching a wider audience and sharing my findings and ideas about inclusion and anti-discrimination. They allow for a broad engagement, where Ahmad facilitates discussions with the humoristic, soft touch unique to his character. The generated content is still archived on various platforms and serves as a digital memory of a specific period.

In my workshops, I utilize theater pedagogical methods to make theoretical concepts tangible for the participants and give them a means of trying different roles and positions, reflecting their beliefs, and providing them with new options for social interaction. The combination of artistic input and theatre pedagogy makes it possible to finely tune irritations, broaden perspectives, welcome new experiences, and build bridges. Discussions of trauma, forced migration, and the empowerment of marginalized groups and individuals are integral. With my show as well as a broader framework of formats built around the same topics, I aim to foster a deeper understanding of cultural diversity, promote intercultural communication, and contribute to an inclusive society that embraces its factual hyper-diversity and comes to see it as a resource to tackle the big challenges of today.

The full version of the article Acting As Social Practice: Theater As A Tool To Initiate Dialogue In A Hyperdiverse Immigration Society is available on The Theatre Times.

Spoiler Caution: This essay contains significant plot details from The Queen of Versailles.

The Queen of Versailles officially opened in Boston at the Colonial Theatre on August 1, 2024, after several weeks of previews at the out-of-town tryout for this Broadway-bound production. It will close on August 25th and plans to head to Broadway in 2025. The show is based on the life stories of Jackie and David Siegel and on Lauren Greenfield’s 2012 documentary film of the same name that followed the Siegel family as they built. This new Stephen Schwartz musical, with the book by playwright Lindsey Ferrentino, takes a hard look at the American Dream and how we have allowed it to evolve, with a side quest into the potential downsides to seeking fame. Schwartz and Ferrentino’s Greek Chorus, the members of the aristocracy from two different generations of ostentatious French Courts (Louis XIV and Marie Antoinette – more on this later), comment in a song about the follies and successes of the American wealthy elite, comparing America’s “1%” to their own histories and consequences. As Jackie Siegel’s on-stage character sings, “We didn’t set out to build the biggest home in America / We just wanted to build the home of our dreams.” Longing for a dream home is a fairly universal American sentiment, as supported by the vast number of house-hunting and home improvement programs available on television and streaming services.

Cast of The Queen of Versailles. Photo Credit: Matthew Murphy.

Notably, David Siegel is portrayed by Oscar-winning actor F. Murray Abraham, and the Tony Award-winning Kristin Chenoweth presents the reality star personality of Jackie Siegel with the blessing and backing of Jackie and her family. Some of the characters represented use the names of their real-life counterparts, but some characters are heavily fictionalized and have been given names that do not correspond with anyone they may partially represent from the documentary or from the Siegels’ life.

The musical might feel light-hearted at first glance, but there are deeper, underlying messages right from the pre-show. These messages warn about the way the American Dream, gaining enough wealth to own one’s own home, has become twisted and unattainable as wealth inequality in the United States has expanded exponentially back to levels not seen since the era of the Robber Barons, and how dangerous this pattern has been historically. According to Bill Spitz, co-founder of Diversified Trust and author of “Robber Barons? Then and Now,” the Gini Coefficient, the statistic used by economists to measure wealth inequality was the same in 1928 as it measured in 2023 when Spitz published his white paper, and that the United States had the highest rate of inequality among all major industrialized nations as of June 2023. The show also does not shy away from portraying the personal costs of living life in the public eye, especially for those caught up in the periphery of the person(s) seeing fame.

Jackie Siegel’s media brand revolves around the idea that if she and her husband can come from humble beginnings to become self-proclaimed billionaires, then anyone can do the same. “Anyone can become American Royalty” Jackie (Chenoweth) tells us in QoV. But is that true? If you cannot expect to inherit wealth, or gain fame from some kind of special talent like sports or music, is it reasonable for the average American to expect to be able to live a rags-to-riches story without doing anything illegal or immoral to get ahead? Can the average person become a millionaire or a billionaire before they retire? A college degree in computer engineering did very little to help Jackie get ahead, the audience is told, and David Siegel dropped out of college before finishing his degree in marketing and management. The promise of a college degree, once an almost guaranteed way to earn your way out of poverty for those who could achieve academically, is no longer assured or even necessary to bring financial success. The gates barring Americans from home ownership and the American Dream have grown larger and more imposing as rents, interest rates, and the cost of living have increased unsustainably. During the song “Little Houses” in Act II, the fictionalized nanny character, Sofia, talks about how she came to the US from the Philippines so she could earn money to support her family back home and someday buy a house for her father and for herself in her home country. Sofia, played by Melody Butiu, references the history of the Marcos dictatorship and the notorious material consumption of Imelda Marcos, including her famous shoe collection. “Everyone here in America, they hope to have what Miss Jackie and David have,” she also reminds us in Act I.

The Siegel’s Orlando castle, which they have modeled after the Palace at Versailles, has been under construction off-and-on since 2004. The excesses of national resources that were poured into the original Versailles between 1661 and 1792 famously contributed to the civil unrest that culminated in the French Revolution and the violent overthrow of King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette. The Court of the Sun King (Louis XIV) who first created Versailles, and the later Court of Marie Antoinette, feature throughout the musical to act as Greek Chorus, both reflecting back and commenting on the action as it unfolds.

The show begins with an introduction from Louis XIV, played by Pablo David Laucerica. Louis addresses the audience and his Court to announce that he will be building a grand new palace for himself. “‘Tis for the very best of reasons,” he sings, “. . . because I can!” This phrase returns again and again throughout the show, as the answer to why the uber-wealthy use their vast resources to build vanity projects, like Versailles. Jackie (Chenoweth) echoes the same phrase in her first song, in the very next scene. It’s the same reason David gives when Gary, played by Greg Hildreth, questions the decision to build Versailles just after their honeymoon in France. In fact, “Because I Can” and “Because We Can” are the titles of the first two songs of Schwartz’s score.

The singing courtiers bemoan the unsuitable location for Louis’s new palace, due to the instability of the swampy marshland and lack of running water at Versailles, but no one dares to object to the Sun King. The analogy is apt in comparison to the American Versailles, as the original was under construction from roughly 1661-1715. That is 54 years for the original construction timeframe of the Palace at Versailles, and the Siegels’ Versailles has been under construction for approximately 20 years at this point. Louis XIV’s immediate successors, his great-grandson Louis XV, and his great-great-great-grandson, Louis XVI both continued to make extensive improvements at Versailles during their reigns. Louis XIV moved the entire government of France from Paris to Versailles, and forced many of his nobles, including his heirs, to move to Versailles so he could keep a strong control over them. Jackie envisions her Versailles as a generational residence as well, referring to Versailles as her legacy and how she and her family will be remembered, echoing Louis’ sentiment from the opening song. “My own Versailles will be my legacy / How they’ll remember my family and me,” she sings.

Louis XVI’s queen was Marie Antoinette, played by Cassondra James, who joined the Greek Chorus during the second act. One of Marie Antoinette’s contributions to Versailles was the construction of a small working farm and cottage with outbuildings that was built so that she could retire to her farm on a whim and pretend to be a peasant without any of the dark realities of peasant life at the time. She was so removed from the reality of the lives of her subjects that she found it restful to play at farming and to pretend to be poor. She tells the audience that the reason she went to the trouble to have the farm built, dig a lake, and displace an entire town for the land, was “. . . because I could!,” echoing the Act I exclamations of Louis XIV, as well as both Jackie and David Siegel. It is important to note here, that American audiences in general may not be knowledgeable enough about French history to understand that the Sun King and Marie Antoinette did not actually live during the same time, and may become confused by the interaction of their characters. The two rulers in real life were five generations apart and Marie Antoinette was born forty years after Louis XIV’s death.

This desire for limited doses of “the simpler life” is echoed in the second act when Jackie takes Victoria to visit her parents’ small house in Endwell, NY. Jackie and Victoria both seem restored and rested by their stay in a simple, little house, living a normal life for a short time. They return home determined to convince David to sell their large current home and Versailles and embrace a simpler life where they can all be happier and closer to each other. This sentiment seems to be much more important to Rikki, however, than it is to Jackie in the end.

Audiences learn that Jackie’s parents, John and Debbie Mallery, were the first in their families to ever own a home. We are told that their house costs $20,000, less than the cost of Jackie’s designer purse when she visits them in a scene in Act II. We also learn that achieving homeownership required the Mallerys, played by Stephen DeRosa and Isabel Keating, to work second or even third-shift blue-collar jobs to purchase and maintain their slice of the American Dream. It is important to remember that they probably bought their small, modest house circa 1965, when the median home price in the United States was about $20,000 and the median family income was just under $7000, according to census.gov, so the cost of a home was about 2.85 times the median annual income of the American family. It’s also worth remembering that in the 1960s, it was unusual for married American women to earn an income, and most middle-class families could comfortably live on a single income, which is not the case today. Today, the median cost ratio for homeownership in America overall is more like 5.6, but in Honolulu, San Jose, and San Francisco, it is 12.1, 12.0, and 11.3, respectively. On the East Coast, as in Miami, New York, and Boston, those ratios are 8.7, 7.1, and 6.5, according to Alexander Hermann and Peyton Whitney at The Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University.

The celebration of wealth and opulence comes to a screeching halt when the show portrays Victoria “Rikki” Siegel’s death by drug overdose in 2015 when she was just 18 years old. The show’s portrayal suggests that Rikki, played by Nina White, was struggling with becoming an unintentional public figure during her teenage years, which may have contributed to her issues with both prescription and illegal drugs. Victoria’s Voice, the Siegel’s foundation in her honor offers a variety of programs designed to support schools and families to keep children and teens safe from drug overdoses, including connecting them with naloxone providers.

The building of a large project like Versailles should, in theory and in practice, create jobs and stimulate the economy for a lengthy period of time. In France during the transition from the Renaissance into the Enlightenment, rulers and wealthy members of society were expected to create paid work for artists and artisans. The responsibility of governments and monarchies to care for their subjects was understood to balance the majesty of their power with the magnanimity of their noblesse oblige, their duty to help those less fortunate as an obligation of the privileges of power and wealth. Even the Robber Barons created work for artisans and artists in the construction of their mansions and vacation homes. But the concept of noblesse oblige only promotes balance when those with privilege and power understand that their fortunate circumstances are not proof of their superiority over those without. The doomed members the of Court of Marie Antoinette pause on their way to the guillotine to congratulate the “American aristocracy” on controlling their “peasant class” by making them believe they can someday join the wealthy elites and convincing them to vote against their own interests in the hope of doing so. “Someday when I am rich, I’ll spend my money so much better,” sings the ensemble during the song “Watch.”

In a well-structured plot, with both musical and conceptual themes woven throughout, we are entertained and informed as we get to know the generous, quirky, contradictory, strong, and vulnerable character of Jackie Siegel as she pursues her American Dream despite the personal costs. We see both her and her husband David’s rags-to-riches stories, and the personal and financial challenges they have faced together along the way. In the end, Jackie asks “When is it enough? When will we know it’s enough?” as she realizes building Versailles has already been so costly in so many ways, and it is still not completed. Will it still all be worth it when it is finally finished? Jackie Siegel does not give up, however. Repeating one theme of the show inspired by Robin Leach’s tagline from his Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous (1984-1995), Chenoweth gives us the last line of the show: “I hope every single one of you, just like me, will get your champagne wishes and caviar dreams!”

The full version of the article A Stinging Critique of the American Dream Underlies “The Queen of Versailles” is available on The Theatre Times.

The Marché des Arts du Spectacle d’Abidjan (Abidjan Market for Performing Arts), or MASA, is one of the major biennial cultural events of francophone West Africa. It stands on par with similar international gatherings in the region such as the Dak’art biennale for the visual arts, or FESPACO in Ouagadougou for cinema. Unlike its peers, however, MASA, which takes place in the financial hub that is the economic capital of Côte d’Ivoire, embraces an expressly commercial function; since its first edition in 1993, the event has provided artists with the opportunity to present their work to a select group of professionals and buyers. In the hopes of delighting a diverse local audience while exploring prospects for future touring engagements, performing artists of all disciplines turn the Palais de la Culture, a multi-venue cultural complex that sits on the city’s Ébrié lagoon and overlooks the business district, into a bustling microcosm of the African performing arts scene, and particularly that of the continent’s francophone countries.

The 2024 edition of MASA (April 13-20) was on the scale of its artists’ ambitions; the event offered a sizeable program that included dancers, musicians, slam poets, circus artists and, of course, theater artists. The theatrical program presented a curated selection of foreign and local companies along with a balance of established and emerging performing artists. Productions reflected a clear desire to highlight theatrical engagements with issues related to the experience of women. The Franco-Ivorian actress Sabine Pakora presented the African premier of her work La Freak, a monologue which Pakora wrote and directed. The work focuses on the artist’s own corporality to explore her coming-of-age as a racialized stage performer in France. In the same performance space, a group of young graduates of Côte d’Ivoire’s national arts conservatory, the Institut National Supérieur des Arts et de l’Action Culturelle (INSAAC), presented an original ensemble piece titled Agoodjié! The energetic work, full of stylized combat scenes and grueling initiation rituals, was inspired by the legendary women warriors, or “Amazones,” of the Dahomey kingdom whose history also inspired the American film The Woman King (2022).

Other remarkable pieces dealing with similar themes included an adaptation of a text by Léonora Miano titled Et que Mon Règne Arrive (And Let My Reign Begin), directed by the Burkinabè grande dame of the stage, Odile Sankara. Festivalgoers had the opportunity to see the work of a selection of emerging playwrights such as Jeanne Diama of Mali, who wrote and performs in Le Pouvoir du Pagne, as well as the Beninois performer Cybelline de Souza, whose Que Nos Voix Résonnent (May Our Voices Resound) gives voice to survivors of sexual violence. These productions and several others too numerous to discuss here made the event’s theatrical program a clear demonstration of the vibrancy of the francophone theatrical scene.

Far from the high-tech stages and velour seats of the Palais de la Culture, another version of the 2024 MASA took place in the venues of the “MASA éclaté.” This part of the program resulted from an initiative to address past criticisms of the event related to its remote location and international focus, both of which tend to exclude the culturally active communities of the city’s diverse outer-city neighborhoods, where much of the urban population resides. The organizers’ efforts were richly rewarded by the crowd that came out for the MASA programming at the Centre d’Action Culturelle d’Abobo (CACAB). Abobo is a densely populated northern suburb of Abidjan. Its many communities are typically drawn to the city for work opportunities but maintain close ties to their ancestral rural regions. This makes unassuming and spartan structures like the CACAB veritable hotbeds of cultural activity that reflect both an urban vibrancy and a rural sense of connection to traditional performance forms.

The Birth of the Zaouli, by the Zaouli Club Djiwidou. Photo credits: Marché des arts du spectacle d’Abidjan

The Zolo de Koriani offered a thrilling example of such an urban and rural mix. The group consists of ten male dancers who execute a series of expansive, swinging dance movements that are cued by the whistle of the lead dancers and accompanied by a small traditional orchestra of percussion and wind instruments. The movements produce a rhythmic swooshing sound made by the dancers’ colorful raffia costumes and traditional headdresses. The group performed to a packed house at the CACAB, which hosted a large delegation of Abobo residents hailing from the dance’s region of origin in the northern district of Denguélé.

Although the CACAB crowd differed dramatically from the one found at the Palais de la Culture – there was a noticeably smaller international presence – troupes presented their work with an eye toward possible performance engagements abroad. In Côte d’Ivoire, one of the most electrifying cases of a traditional form that has taken on broader global appeal is the hypnotizing spectacle of the Zaouli. Rooted in one of the world’s richest masquerading cultures, that of Côte d’Ivoire generally and, more specifically, that of the Guro, the dance and mask of the Zaouli were invented relatively recently, in the 1950s, and were inscribed in UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2017.

The Zaouli mask includes several possible variants but represents a homage to feminine beauty. The dance, performed by a man, is reputed to be one of the continent’s most difficult and includes rapid leg movements that appear to cause the dancer, and the mask, to float in stillness as the legs pump vertically almost to a blur. The Zaouli Club Djiwidou, which performed its production called The Birth of the Zaouli at the CACAB, regaled the audience with the skill of its lead dancer and a choreography that presented an overarching narrative of the Zaouli’s place in modern culture. The young members of the audience also erupted in applause when the Zaouli dancer executed references to urban dance moves associated with contemporary hits like the Ivorian hip hop artist Tam Sir’s song Coup du Marteau.

With such a wide variety of performances and publics, MASA has grown to integrate a range of programming approaches, from market-focused events to forms of community outreach and engagement through performance. Because of this, it proves difficult to describe the whole of the event through a single characteristic or approach. MASA’s plurality of forms, publics, and venues may indeed be taken as an apt reflection of francophone African theatrical creation today, which is often called upon to invent forms while preserving traditions, and to appeal to global audiences while mobilizing diverse local publics.

The full version of the article The Many Publics Of “The Marché Des Arts Du Spectacle D’Abidjan” is available on The Theatre Times.

The European Theatre Convention (ETC) in collaboration with Renew Culture officially launched in July 2024 the ETC Theatre Green Book (ETC TGB). The sixty-nine-page, freely available document brimming with images, graphs, and tables aims to offer a clear, step-by-step, and undaunting roadmap to live arts institutions in their journey towards achieving carbon emission neutrality. For the sixty-three publicly-funded European member theatres of the ETC, this goal is currently set for 2030.

The ETC initiative extends and adapts the ideas and methods contained by the UK-focused 2020 Theatre Green Book to the institutional diversity of theatres across European countries. The ETC TGB offers time- and cost-saving solutions for theatres willing to embark on the journey towards sustainability as it eliminates the need to devise methodologies themselves and/or to hire external experts. For example, the ETC TGB provides ready-made tools such as the Production Calculator that help to quantify a production’s level of sustainability. As opposed to separate theatres coming up with their own plans, the ETC TGB reunites European theatres towards a common goal, building support networks that rev up enthusiasm and significantly increase the participant theatres’ chances to achieve the green goals.

A strength of the ETC TGB is the flexibility it offers theatres in how to achieve common goals and the order in which they may be addressed along the three set dimensions of (1) implementing more sustainable practices of putting on shows (productions), (2) finding more environmentally-mindful ways for the arts organization to conduct its daily activities (operations), and finally (3) updating the venues and the architectural designs to increase energy efficiency (buildings). Along with the previously mentioned Production Calculator, the other two useful spreadsheets provided are the Operations Tracker and the Building Survey Tool. In an accompanying document published alongside the ETC TBG, the “Applied Research Study on Theatre and Sustainability” (ARSTS), co-Directors of Renew Culture and main authors Lisa Burger and Paddy Dillon explain that the ETC TGB’s flexibility is designed to render the path towards sustainable theatre-making approachable to all kinds of theatres, irrespective of the previous steps (not) taken, the staff’s level of expertise and comfort, or the larger national, municipal, and legal frameworks in which they operate and which might curtail their actions. For example, some theatres are housed in historical buildings whose status as heritage sites render their renovation difficult. The ETC TGB ensures that all willing theatres can begin by doing something right now, and not get bogged down by aspects outside of their control.

At the same time, the ETC TGB’s holistic approach makes sure that theatres take steps in all three identified dimensions of change needed to achieve zero net emissions, and not get fixated on making huge progress only in one area while other crucial aspects get ignored. The ETC TGB proposes four different tiers that classify theatres according to the progress in sustainability they make by hitting pre-defined targets across all three areas of production, buildings, and operations. The different levels, setting increasingly tight requirements on aspects such as energy use or reusing materials, are: Preliminary (where theatres merely need to pledge their intention to follow ETC TGB guidelines and create a task force with an action plan), Basic, Intermediate, and Advanced. For example, according to the ETC TGB, a theatre that reached a Basic level of sustainable practices means that it simultaneously:

• Meets the Basic standard in production practices. Among others, this standard asks that half of everything on stage is reused or recycled (such as costumes drawn from the costume shop), and that 65% of materials used in the show will subsequently be stored to be repurposed in the future.
• Runs the majority of operations to Basic standard across four out of six operational categories. This may include practices like introducing a progressive reduction of waste, encouraging through positive reinforcement audience travel via public transit, and controlling heating and cooling by timers to avoid energy wastage.
• Develops a sustainability plan for its building and carries out initial easy fixes to reduce energy use. The latter might include draught-proofing windows and doors and installing hot water flow restrictors on taps and showers.

A stand-out approach featured in the ETC TGB is related to the self-certification process in which theatres may award themselves any of the four levels. Theatres can earn badges that self-accredit them to levels of Basic, or Intermediate, or Advanced, and they can post these badges on websites and promotional materials. In the absence of any external evaluative commission, the process functions according to an honor system that may reduce anxiety and boost collegiality while also risking the temptation to cut corners, especially so in the context of growing financial pressures and the inequality of theatre budgets across the European continent. The ARSTS document mentions as a challenge the high costs of upgrading theatre buildings, but does not sufficiently factor in how said costs may be prohibitive for some and not others. The ETC TGB tactic of bolstering theatres’ engagement with sustainable practices through a gamified four-tier process that puts participant theatres together in a low-pressure competitive quest has its significant benefits. But it can also add to the brutal competition for slices of the public budget and private funding that arts institutions are forced to participate in. The impact of the ETC TGB project will depend on whether ETC will be able to help theatres foster a belief in and dedication to the intrinsic, non-monetary value of sustainability, instead of looking over how theatres join other types of businesses in greenwashing practices where superficial changes are designed merely to court customers and funding bodies.

An interesting part of the ARSTS report includes short case studies where representatives from the nine theatres that participated last year in a test-run of trying to achieve ETC TGB Basic level in sustainability recount their experiences. Highlights from the case studies include Artistic Director Calixto Bieito from the Teatro Arriaga in Spain stressing how following the ETC TGB guidelines did not limit her creativity in any significant way. The point is important to emphasize when some directors and designers may view imposing limits on how much and what kind of materials employed in a production as restrictions upon their artistic vision. Yet imagination and invention paradoxically flourish most within imposed limits. Not relying on the dazzle and literalness of lavish realistic décor will nurture theatricality.

Multiple voices in the case studies point out that the success of transitioning to sustainable theatre practices rests on capacities to work together. Martin Kukučka, co-Artistic Director of the National Theatre in Prague, talks about how participant institutions need to begin by inspiring every worker in the theatre starting from the bottom up, instead of operating through top-down impositions. Craig Tye, Technical Director, and Lucy Davies, Executive Director at the Young Vic, discuss the vital need for storage spaces when theatres are supposed to reuse materials. Finding such spaces is a challenge, however, particularly in big cities like London burdened by pricy real estate and a housing crisis. A possible solution is for theatres in a city to collaborate and share storage and resources. Finally, the most impactful changes, such as switching energy sources from fossil fuel to renewables, depend on close collaborations with crucial actors such as the municipality and are reliant on city, national, and ultimately global shifts in how we live, how we function, and what we value. Many sustainable changes that should be pursued in theatres, like better waste management or environmentally friendly transportation of audiences and touring artists, depend on the larger infrastructure.

Dillon and Burger are well aware that “changing processes requires not only personal commitment but a deeper examination of systems” (ARSTS 9) and that “perfect sustainability cannot be achieved overnight in a world which is not engineered for sustainable working” (ARSTS 10). They argue convincingly and astutely that first steps need to be taken regardless. The most laudable aspect of the ETC TGB is the big effort it puts in making change actionable, manageable, and measurable, shaking theatres out of the paralyzing passivity that sets in when faced with a daunting task. At the same time, close attention will always have to be paid to these larger systems. A main challenge identified during the trial run, a “macro-blocker” as referred to in the ARSTS report, is the issue of time. More precisely, the current pressures on theatres and artists to produce large outputs and move quickly from project to project leaves no time for a managerial and artistic team to discuss, develop sustainable ideas, and innovate procedures. The gig economy itself—prone to over-production, waste, and burnout—is inimical to the sustainability of materials, workers’ health, and artistic creativity. Dillon and Burger make the obvious observation that “reducing the amount of work theatres produce would make sustainability easier” (ARSTS 65). All of this discussion about systems amounts to the conclusion that any real interest in sustainable theatre-making goes hand in hand with larger interests in promoting labor rights, in resisting the fossil fuel industry, and in criticizing the current economic models.

Whatever reservations the ETC TGB may elicit, they would be similar to those debated at length in relation to proposals such as the circular-economy model or notions like “sustainability” itself. The latter term implies that the fight is to sustain and maintain what we already have, not to try to fundamentally change the crisis-generating system in the first place. With the motto “against renovation, for innovation,” Bertolt Brecht similarly argued against efforts to prolong the life of a moribund theatre industry instead of fashioning an altogether different theatrical apparatus. If promoting recycling and reusing while functioning otherwise still driven by its engines of growth and profit, the circular economy model is a puny, ineffective measure against the extent of the climate crisis.

Yet focusing on pointing out the limitations of existing measures in the absence of any other initiative is an even more ineffective and defeatist gesture. The ambitious ETC TGB plan is for the initial nine theatres in the focus group to mentor more ETC member theatres over the span of a year. Then, the following year the plan is to expand again the mentoring to other theatres, so that by the end of 2026 all ETC member theatres will have reached the Basic level in the joint quest towards zero net emissions by 2030. The ETC TGB is a more than welcome initiative in a theatre sector that is already late to efforts to improve their practice with an empathy for living others and a concern for our common future.

The full version of the article The “ETC Theatre Green Book” and Theatre-making During Climate Crisis is available on The Theatre Times.

How do we train students to work within rapidly changing landscapes and for a theatre of the future that does not exist yet and already is an accumulation of multiple things?

In my book Multilingual Dramaturgies: Towards New European Theatre, I argue that one way of doing this, is to use multilingual contexts to support students in developing a creative and flexible attitude to their skills, so they can respond to and shape various professional, cultural, and socio-political circumstances. This is because, multilingual theatre is a radical and necessary practice that facilitates imagining and rehearsing new ways of being, experiencing, communicating, and relating to and with each other in the contemporary world.

But how can you do it without increasing your workload or accessing additional resources?

How do you do it, if you speak one language?

Here are some, mostly economically- and effort-free, suggestions.

Watch and Review Theatre Without Surtitles

As part of performance analysis – or another theatre-event related module – show a recording of a performance in a language your students (and even you) are unlikely to know. Your library may have a subscription to the Digital Theatre Plus, or other subscription-based platforms. Online archives like Polish Ninateka have theatre works available for free, including stagings of classics and productions by Krzysztof Warlikowski or Jan Klata. Some works remained online after the Covid-19 era of digital theatre; Renaissance by European Theatre Conventions is an example. And, of course, many eminent theatre works have been digitalized. Ariane Mnouchkine’s 1789 is now on DVD, and Tadeusz Kantor’s Dead Class is available on YouTube for free.

The point is that by encountering theatre rooted in a language different than their own, and without having access to the semiotic understanding of the words, you can invite your students to consider how theatre is made and performed in other contexts, and how ideas of theatre and encountering theatre – including the idea of authenticity/scenic truth – are culturally coded. Such a discussion would invite your students to voice what they do not understand, what they ‘hate,’ find frustrating, different, or even ‘bad theatre.’ What do they understand from the piece? What makes no sense? Does it remind them of anything? Through that, you can also engage them in larger discussions:

• From what do we make meanings in performance (beyond words)?
• What new understanding of theatre experiencing performances in foreign languages bring?
• Are ideas like scenic truth, good/bad, or ‘artistic quality’ stable or not?

Based on the experience above, invite your students to write a review. Who would be the audience of such a review? What is the position of a reviewer in the intercultural situation? What can they comment on? What ethical issues are to be considered? In what way does such an exercise allow them to rethink the broader role of theatre reviews?

Provide Space for Multilingual Discussions and Practices

Given that there are approximately 7,000 languages which arise from ethnicity, region, state, or disability contexts, and these languages move with people, it is likely that in your classroom students are speaking multiple languages that arise from their social and familial situations. Welcome these languages by allowing students to:

• start to talk in the language of their choice (and translate if necessary by themselves or with the help of others);
• include words from other languages when they are missing the word; they may not know the correct word in the dominating language, but it may be that such a word does not exist.

It will take time for all the students to get involved. Especially those speaking languages deemed less ‘desirable’ in your teaching context may find it more challenging to feel safe. It may feel that the discussions are taking more time. However, you will make the different meaning-makings and negotiations across languages already happening in your classroom (but in students’ heads) visible and audible. The results are worth it as they will allow your students to use their cultural, linguistic, and cognitive resources fully. Together, you will also stretch the socio-cultural-linguistic boundaries of the module.

Theatre Terms Across Languages

When introducing a term, such as ‘performance’ or ‘actor’ or ‘spectator,’ ask your students how these terms sound in their languages. This will not only welcome other languages but will also create an opportunity for discussing how different cultures and languages think about these terms. In such discussions, your students will be the experts, facilitating partners-in-learning environments in which students and lecturers work and learn together to “foster engaged student learning and engaging learning and teaching enhancement” (Healey et al., 7). A great example is the term ‘performance’ and, interconnected to it, performance studies, underpinned by what ‘performance’ means in the English-language context. To nourish the discussion, you may look at an essay by Dariusz Kosiński, who shows how the difference between the term ‘performance’ in Polish and English inspired a whole new field of studies: performatics.

You can also read some of the interviews from my book – e.g. with Rimini Protokoll or Anne Bérélowitch or SignDance Collective or Caroline Guiela Nguyen – to see how differently concepts of actors, translation and spectators operate in different linguistic contexts within international and national environments.

Analyse Classical Texts in Different Languages

This strategy builds on linguistic resources in your classroom, and you need a dramatic text translated to many languages. The Project Gutenberg provides many of such plays in many languages. Of course, this also means needing to depend on ‘canonical’ Western texts such as Antigone, La vida es sueño (Life is a Dream), or Hamlet. And you can have a critical discussion with your students about the reasons for such ‘dominance.’ Some contemporary plays are also published in multilingual editions, such as Magda Romanska’s Opheliamachine.

The purpose of text analysis across languages is to see how differently situated ideas are mapped upon a translation and how gaps between them allow to see the respective cultures and the text in a new way.

Last semester, for example, with the Dual Master International Dramaturgy and Theatre Studies Master students from the University of Amsterdam, I analysed La vida es sueño (Life is a Dream) by Pedro Calderón de la Barca. Students could read the play in any language, and we discussed the differences in the classroom. A fascinating reflection came from the difference between Dutch-, Polish-, and English-language takes on the Day 1 king Basilio’s monologue in translations by Erik Coenen, Jarosław Marek Rymkiewicz and Jo Clifford respectively. ‘Dutch’ Basilio performs his power through jokes. ‘Polish’ Basilio’s performance is underpinned by suffering. Basilio, in English, is skilled in rhetoric, and his performance is more important than ethical dilemmas. Together with students, we were astounded by the critical viewpoint these differences offered on the route to power of Dutch, Polish, British, and American politicians such as Geert Wilders, Jarosław Kaczyński, Boris Johnson, or Donald Trump.

There are many alternatives to the examples above. You can also engage AI translatory tools to try to translate a play. If you have access to someone with an understanding of the source language, together you can discuss the possibilities and limits of such language encounter and the limits of translation itself. What ethical dilemma arise depending on who is present in the room? Multilingual contexts are hyper-contextual, and you and your students will bring your unique situatedness to re-imagine the suggestions above, staging multiple reflections and rehearsals for and of futures.

The full version of the article Make Your Classroom Multilingual: On Training Students For Rapidly Changing Cultural Landscapes is available on The Theatre Times.

They say everyone can be an actor. Any location can transform into a theatre stage. Yet finding a theatre, or the Miangaly theatre company, is equivalent to meeting a president in a nightclub—a tedious job.

It was at a public speaking workshop that I first met Miangaly theatre company stage directors Christiane Ramanantsoa, Haja Ravalison, and Vony Ranala. They used theatrical exercises like role plays to help me get to know myself. Since then, I’ve developed a fresh perspective on theatre.

However, what I have learned with Miangaly theatre company is that passion is not enough to survive in the theatre industry, despite its openness and boldness.

Christiane Ramanantsoa and the beginning

Christiane Ramanantsoa is the founder of the Miangaly Theatre company. She says she never imagined theatre would be a calling; she did not see herself doing it for long.

A former history and geography professor, Christiane Ramanantsoa worked at Diego University in northern Madagascar. She further became a French language instructor at the French Alliance of Antananarivo, a French culture centre in the capital.

It was through her role as a French language instructor that her journey with theatre started. Her journey began when she participated in a drama workshop run by the French Alliance Drama Workshop also known as ATAF – Atelier de Théâtre de l’Alliance Française as a volunteer actor.

Christiane Ramanantsoa, Founder of the Miangaly Theatre company

“We were just four volunteers doing theatre at ATAF,” she remembers.

They used the stage and rehearsal space at French Alliance in Antananarivo and had the opportunity to stage performances outside the centre. As a result, they gained some notoriety on the Madagascar theatre scene.

At the beginning of 2001, ATAF split from the French Alliance to form ATAF Miangaly. This was the beginning of Ramanantsoa’s life as a stage director.

Although it is difficult to make a living through theatre in Madagascar, Ramanantsoa was devoted. At this point, art had become more essential than money. Ramanantsoa and the stage were not willing to part ways. She stayed.

“The passion, the intense pleasure of creating, the emotion of sharing, and so many other things made me stay until now,” she says.

This was courageous in a society where women were discouraged from working and pursuing their passions. Today Ramanantsoa has turned to theatre as a means of escaping and defying conventional norms.

And it doesn’t hurt to have a supportive partner. Ramanantsoa says that throughout her artistic path, her spouse supported and encouraged her unconditionally.

She formed her theatre troupe in 1998 and named it the Miangaly Theatre Company.

“I love my family and my big Miangaly family… I think I could not have continued without their support, kindness, and love.”

Of course, she does more, but she argues that the only thing she thrives at is acting.

Miangaly theatre company is a group of perfectionist performers in Madagascar.

Why Miangaly?

“Miangaly” is a word taken from the Malagasy language, which is the national language of Madagascar and an Austronesian language. The term “miangaly” is derived from the Malagasy root “angaly,” which means perfection, careful work, and a means for artists to express their thoughts and inspirations. With the prefix “mi-,” the word “miangaly” signifies that artists employ theatre as a medium for self-expression. The noun emphasizes the uniqueness of each actor.

The French and Malagasy-speaking Miangaly theatre company is a group of perfectionist performers who focus their entire attention on creating carefully planned performances.

Ramanantsoa is a follower of Brazilian theatre director Augusto Boal, and she adjusted her theatre approach using his exercises and ideas. “Most of the theatrical exercises I was leading many years ago at Miangaly theatre company were typically based on Augusto Boal’s theatrical exercises,” she says.

She continues to share both her passion and vision for theatre with actors at the company.

The Miangaly theatre company is still operating because of this. According to Fela Razafiarison, one of the stage directors, “Only a handful of theatre companies in Madagascar choose to share their knowledge with other actors.”

Miangaly theatre: A theatre of all disciplines

The Miangaly artists don’t limit themselves or their works to a particular kind of theatre. And with an openness to different art forms, they are changing the Malagasy theatre industry.

“There are no strict rules; we welcome every discipline in our shows to convey the message effectively. If the message is more effective with dance, we collaborate with dancers,” Razafiarison proudly shares.

Miangaly theatre company’s “FFFFFFF”, Der Ort project, supported by Cercle Germano-Malagasy- Goethe Zentrum

The group has broken boundaries with its approach, going where many theatre companies are limited. They have done elaborate dance and martial arts on stage. “There was a time when we needed an aikido expert to teach us martial arts for our performance. On stage, we practiced aikido and used sticks,” Haja Ravalison shares.

Aikido is a modern Japanese martial art that consists of several distinct styles, including Iwama Ryu, Iwama Shin Shin Aiki ShurenKai, and Shodokan aikido, among others.

With such daring bravery and openness, the artists at Miangaly are constantly evolving and growing owing to their open mindset.

Theatre to a larger audience

The Rallye Moi(s) Theatre is an annual festival curated by the Miangaly Theatre Company since 2018 to introduce theatre to a wider audience.

Since then, March has been designated as the month for the celebration of the arts in various public locations, including the French Alliance of Antananarivo, the French Institute of Madagascar, the Germano-Malagasy Centre, and other areas of the capital.

Throughout the festival, they develop, improvise, and perform plays, mimes, and theatrical showcases, which give more people the opportunity to actively participate in the festival.

They also collaborate with other artists to sensitize and lead cultural workshops in rural areas.

“We are able to collaborate and work with other disciplines and adjust to diverse environments. We have played in a variety of settings, from outdoor stages and public spaces to remote locations where it is challenging to perform. One day we had a performance in Ambatondrazaka, a town located in the Alaotra-Mangoro region of Madagascar, situated in the central-eastern part of the country. We had to speak and act out situations aloud in front of thousands of spectators, despite the lack of a microphone. It was a special performance that I won’t forget soon.” Says Ravalison.

Miangaly theatre’s Les Voix des Co-produced with the French Institute of Madagascar

Theatre as a tool for Education and change  

In Madagascar, pursuing your passion as a career is not always easy, and not everyone sets out to be an artist; those who are willing to go against the tide find success.

Some older Malagasy perceive painting, for example, as a pastime rather than a profession. You must be able to sustain yourself if you decide to work in the arts.

To normalise the fact that art is more than a hobby, the company wishes to implement theatre into the educational system.

“We believe that culture is one of the foundations of education,” Ramanantsoa says.

At the moment, French and English-speaking schools such as Collège de France in Antananarivo are profiting from this initiative.

In 2022, the company started involving children in Ivelo, a small village behind Vontovorona in the former province of Antananarivo.

According to Ravalison, some people in Madagascar believe that theatre is for the elderly, which is why the company has decided to bring theatre to different settings, such as schools where actors Nathalie Rason and Hoby Rajoelison are teachers.

Unbelievably, art can manifest itself when the creator is working with passion. Among other things, art can amuse, educate, and heal. That is occasionally the main motivation for certain artists to continue creating art.

Miangaly theatre’s Nathalie Rason, Haja Ravalison, Hoby Rajoelison, Bini Josoa in Les Rats Conteurs et Consoeurs (Photo by Matchbox D)

As Razafiarison says, “we are convinced that there is something in theatre that has the power to change a person.”

For Ranivoharivololona Razafindrakoto theatre helped control her stuttering. She naturally stammered and found it difficult to speak in front of others. In March 2021, she participated in a drama workshop presented by the company. She recounts how the exercises she did during the class helped her overcome her anxiety and dread of speaking in front of a crowd.

“I can handle my stuttering effectively because of the workshop.” Ranivoharivololona reports.

After the workshop, she opted to stay with the Miangaly theatre company. Longer than she had intended. In 2022 she took part in many performances at the Rallye Moi(s) Theatre festival at Antananarivo’s Ivokolo Analakely Malagasy Cultural Centre.

Even though they self-produce each show, they appear to make a livelihood through theatre through their efforts to promote contemporary theatre and its benefits for personal development in a variety of settings: schools, workplaces, streets, cultural centres, and many more spaces.

And they are not slowing down. That is Miangaly theatre company for you.

This article appeared in The African Theatre Magazine on December 15, 2023, and has been reposted with permission. To read the original article, please click here.

The full version of the article Miangaly Theatre Company: Defining the Stage in Madagascar is available on The Theatre Times.