World Threatre Day commemorated

professional theatre practitioners was made
Prominent thespians handled the discussion on the role of the media in developing theatre in Zimbabwe as well as the quality of the theatre production presented to mark the 50th anniversary of the World Theatre Day.
Highlights of the celebrations included paper presentations by several art practitioners who included Samuel Ravengai of the University of Zimbabwe Theatre Arts Department and Elton Mjanana, who is theatre consultant at the Harare International Festival of the Arts.
In his papers, Ravengai talked about the development of theatre in Zimbabwe and some of the challenges that it was faced with.
“The theatre critic is, however, in a dilemma when executing this important role. He or she is under pressure from various interested parties who all want to be satisfied.
“The theatre critic is surrounded by artistes insatiable by the richest and most frequent doses of praise, theatrical managers’ greedy for advertisement, theatre novices without reputation who want to beg or buy them ready made.
“They are also faced with entertainment editors who demand that theatre criticism be newsworthy and news readers who want to be objectively informed about which shows to attend and which ones to avoid.”
In his paper, Elton Mjanana examined to role played by media in promoting theatre since the early 1980s.
He highlighted noticeable phases in the development of theatre such as the community theatre phase of the late 1980s that saw large numbers of people earning a living through full-time occupation to the period of the early 2000 when donor support drove theatre.
“That lead the growing of what he considered as theatre that simply used stories in newspaper as its content.”
A rich and profound frank dialogue between the participating theatre practitioners and the two presenters of papers on the role that media has played in the developing Zimbabwe theatre later took place.
There were those who gave examples what they considered was a very solid contribution to the growth of Zimbabwean theatre through very informed and rich theatre criticism both in the print and electronic media in the late 1980s. Then there were those who lamented at the death of theatre coverage in the electronic media especially since 2000 as well as those who recognised valiant efforts in the print media on committed coverage of theatre although such coverage was limited to theatre taking place at Harare’s Theatre in the Park and Reps Theatre and at Bulawayo’s Amakhosi Theatre and Bulawayo Theatre Club.
The celebrations were concluded by a presentation of a play “Gospel of Othello”, a short performance of poetry by three young poets and the reading of the international message for the 50th anniversary of the World Theatre Day written by John Malkovick, an American actor and director and founder member of Steppenwolf Theatre.