International Message for World Theatre Day 2026 – March 27

International Theatre Institute ITI - World Organization for the Performing Arts

World Theatre Day was initiated in 1961 by the International Theatre Institute ITI. It is celebrated annually on March 27 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 among them is the dissemination of the World Theatre Day Message through which, at the invitation of ITI, a figure of global stature shares their reflections on the theme of Theatre and the Culture of Peace. The first World Theatre Day Message was written by Jean Cocteau in 1962.

The author of the International Message for World Theatre Day 2026 is actor Willem DAFOE, currently the Artistic Director of the Theatre Department of La Biennale di Venezia, and one of the founding members of the legendary troupe The Wooster Group.

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I am known, first and foremost, as a film actor. Yet my roots are deeply embedded in theatre. From 1977 to 2003, I was a member of The Wooster Group, creating and performing original works at The Performing Garage in New York and touring around the world. I have also worked with Richard Foreman, Robert Wilson, and Romeo Castellucci. Today, I am the Artistic Director of the Venice Theatre Biennale. This appointment, everything that is happening in the world today, and my desire to return to the stage have strengthened my belief in the unique, positive power and the vital importance of theatre.

In my early days with The Wooster Group, we sometimes had very small audiences at our performances in New York. The rule was simple: if there were more performers on stage than spectators in the audience, we could cancel the show. But we never did. Many of us had no formal theatre training; we were people from different disciplines who came together to create something collectively. So “the show must go on” was not necessarily our motto; rather, we felt a sacred obligation to honor our meeting with the audience.

Often we rehearsed during the day and presented the material in the evening as a “work in progress.” Sometimes we worked for years on a single production, surviving thanks to tours with earlier pieces. Working for so long on a single play could indeed become exhausting; rehearsals were sometimes grueling, but those public presentations were always filled with excitement—even when the tiny audience seemed to condemn our lack of relevance. That is when I understood that, regardless of the number of people in the room, the audience—as witness—is what gives theatre its meaning and life.

It is like the sign in a gambling hall: “YOU HAVE TO BE PRESENT TO WIN.” The shared, real-time experience of a creative act—which may be directed and calculated, yet is always different—remains the undeniable strength of theatre. Socially and politically, theatre has never been more important for the way we understand ourselves and the world in which we live.

“The elephant in the room” is the emergence of new technologies and social media. They promise connection, but in reality they seem to have fragmented and isolated us from one another. I use my computer every day, even though I do not have social media; I have googled myself and asked AI for information. But one would have to be blind not to see how human contact risks being replaced by our relationship with screens. Although technology serves us, the deeper issue remains: we no longer know who is on the other end of the line, and this contributes to a crisis of truth and reality. The internet can raise questions, but it rarely manages to capture the sense of wonder that theatre creates—a wonder born from attention, engagement, and the spontaneous community of those gathered in a circle of action and reaction.

As an actor and theatre-maker, I remain a devotee of its power. In an increasingly divided, controlled, and violent world, our challenge is not to allow theatre to be corrupted: neither to become a mere commercial business offering entertainment through distraction, nor to remain a dusty institution that merely preserves tradition. Instead, we must nourish its power to connect people, communities, and cultures and, above all, its capacity to ask: where are we going?

True theatre challenges the way we think and encourages us to imagine what we aspire to become. We are social animals, biologically designed to interact with the world. Each sense is a gateway to an encounter, and through this encounter we define ourselves more clearly. Through story, aesthetics, language, movement, and scenography—theatre, as a total art form, can help us see what has been, what is, and above all what our world might become.

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Willem Dafoe – short biography

Willem Dafoe, currently the Artistic Director of the Theatre Department of La Biennale di Venezia, was one of the founding members of the legendary troupe The Wooster Group. Working at The Performing Garage in New York between 1977 and 2004, the group established a revolutionary approach to avant-garde theatre.

His theatrical career continued through landmark collaborations with visionaries such as Bob Wilson, Marina Abramović, Richard Foreman, and Romeo Castellucci. In the early 1980s, Dafoe made his film debut, quickly becoming an internationally acclaimed figure for his remarkable versatility, moving with ease between independent productions and mainstream successes.

His outstanding performances have earned him four Academy Award nominations and the prestigious Coppa Volpi for Best Actor at the Venice Film Festival in 2018. Despite his remarkable success on the big screen, his devotion to theatre remains the central pillar defining his artistic vision and interpretative rigor.

UNITER
 March 12, 2026