World Theatre Day - International Theatre Institute ITI
March 27 is celebrated as World Theatre Day around the world. Before the evolution of the screen and films, people enjoyed drama as a source of entertainment. Theatre is used as a medium to reflect our society and in various languages, it depicts culture, tradition which exist around the world. World Theatre Day is thus celebrated to preserve and promote dramas, which people enjoy even today.
World Theatre Day was initiated in 1961 by the International Theatre Institute ITI. It is celebrated annually on the 27th March by ITI Centres and the international theatre community. Various national and international theatre events are organized to mark this occasion. One of the most important of these is the circulation of the World Theatre Day Message through which at the invitation of ITI, a figure of world stature shares his or her reflections on the theme of Theatre and a Culture of Peace. The first World Theatre Day Message was written by Jean Cocteau in 1962.
Ever since, each year on the 27th March (date of the opening of the 1962 "Theatre of Nations" season in Paris), World Theatre Day has been celebrated in many and varied ways by ITI Centres - of which there are now more than 90 throughout the world. Moreover theatres, theatre professionals, theatre lovers, theatre universities, academies and schools celebrate it as well.