This has been such a very difficult time for live performance and many artists, technicians and craftsmen and women have struggled in a profession that is already fraught with insecurity.

At the end of a performance of Ajoka Theatre’s play on Sufi Poet Bulleh Shah, an old man, accompanied by a young boy, came to the actor playing the role of the great Sufi, “My grandson is unwell, would you please blow a blessing upon him.”

Before my awakening to the theatre, my teachers were already there. They had built their houses and their poetic approach on the remains of their own lives.

The tribe launches small stones to bring down birds from the air, when a gigantic mammoth bursts in on the scene and ROARS –and at the same time, a tiny human ROARS like the mammoth. Then, everyone runs away...

In 1963, my predecessor, the great Arthur Miller said as the threat of nuclear war lay heavy over the world: ’When asked to write In a time when diplomacy and politics have such terribly short and feeble arms, the delicate but sometimes lengthy reach of art must bear the burden of holding together the human community.’

After all the evolutionary stories, we only know one thing in brief; that all life forms tend to survive till eternity

It’s a moment of communion, an unrepeatable encounter, not found in any other secular activity. It’s the simple act of a group of people choosing to come together in the same place at the same time to take part in a shared experience

In his aspirations to greatness, to beauty,
A better being, a better world
That he would build of his own thoughts
That he could have forged with his own hands

Speaking here I am not myself, I am not an actress, I am just one of the many people that theatre uses as a conduit to exist, and it is my duty to be receptive to this - or, in other words, we do not make theatre exist, it is rather thanks to theatre that we exist.

To hell with gadgets and computers - just go to the theatre, occupy whole rows in the stalls and in the galleries, listen to the word and look at living images! - it is theatre in front of you, do not neglect it and do not miss a chance to participate in it - perhaps the most precious chance we share in our vain and hurried lives.

The theatre is in a unique position to make everything happen, to turn us into a civilization dissatisfied with the safe, the predictable, with that which does not alter out perceptions.

Under trees in tiny villages, and on high tech stages in global metropolis; in school halls and in fields and in temples; in slums, in urban plazas, community centres and inner-city basements, people are drawn together to commune in the ephemeral theatrical worlds that we create to express our human complexity, our diversity, our vulnerability, in living flesh, and breath, and voice

Thus the only solution to the crisis lies in the hope that a great expulsion is organized against us and especially against young people who wish to learn the art of theatre: a new diaspora of Commedianti, of theatre makers, who would, from such an imposition, doubtlessly draw unimaginable benefits for the sake of a new representation.

May your work be compelling and original. May it be profound, touching, contemplative, and unique. May it help us to reflect on the question of what it means to be human, and may that reflection be blessed with heart, sincerity, candor, and grace.

Theatre subtly permeates the human soul gripped by fear and suspicion, by altering the image of self - and opening a world of alternatives for the individual and hence the community.

Theatre has the ability to make us smile, to make us cry, but should also make us think and reflect.

Theatre is not just an event. It is a way of life!

In order to represent the world in all its complexity, the artist must bring forth new forms and ideas, and trust in the intelligence of the spectator, who is capable of distinguishing the silhouette of humanity within this perpetual play of light and shadow.

Theatre is life. There has never been a time as now when it is incumbent on all of us to denounce futile wars and doctrinal differences which often raise their ugly heads undeterred by the conscience that is vibrant with responsibility.

The theatre moves, illuminates, disquiets, disturbs, lifts the spirit, reveals, provokes and violates conventions. It is a conversation shared with society. Theatre is the first art to confront emptiness, shadows and silence to make words, movement, lights and life surge forth.

Theatre, come to my rescue! I am asleep. Wake me

Theatre is the father of all arts. This is a truth none can contend, and for this reason it is my one and only passion.

For two thousand years the theatre has held a mirror up to the world and explained our place in it. Tragedy has portrayed life as being subject to Fate – Comedy has done this often enough as well.

The Myth of the First Performance points out that in theatre, the playwright, the performers and the audience form a continuum, but one which will always be unstable and therefore potentially explosive.

I think, therefore, that Theatre will never cease to exist because I believe that men and women will never stop living without the agony of self-knowledge, without the existential need to become spectators of their actions, that is to say, without those elements of the human psyche from which the Art of Theatre emerged, from which it has been re-created for thousands of years and from which it will continue to be reborn as long as human beings remain the natural fruit of love.

The universality of Chekhov does not lie in his being Russian but in the genius that enabled him to describe the Russian soul with which all human beings can identify. The same applies to all geniuses and even to simply “good” playwrights.

The theatre has a million visions of life, but they all have this in common – we sit back and engage ourselves at what we might call an “intimate distance”. Very few other art forms allow us this mixture of the subjective and the objective, the intellectual and the emotional at such a profound level.