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Theodoros Terzopoulos is the author of this year’s Message
The internationally acclaimed Greek director and teacher, Theodoros Terzopoulos, signs the Message of World Theatre Day 2025. He is the second Greek artist to receive this honour after Iakovos Kambanellis (2001).

About the World Theatre Day
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.

Each year an outstanding figure in theatre or a person outstanding in heart and spirit from another field is invited to share his or her reflections on theatre and international harmony. What is known as the International Message is translated into more than 50 languages, read for tens of thousands of spectators before performances in theatres throughout the world, and printed in hundreds of daily newspapers. Colleagues in the audio-visual field lend a fraternal hand, with more than a hundred radio and television stations transmitting the Message to listeners in all corners of the five continents.
 

Theatre Director, Educator, Author, Founder and Artistic Director of the Attis Theatre Company, Inspirator of Theatre Olympics and Chairman of the International Committee of Theatre Olympics

Can theatre hear the SOS call that our times are sending out, in a world of impoverished citizens, locked in cells of virtual reality, entrenched in their suffocating privacy? In a world of robotized existences within a totalitarian system of control and repression across the spectrum of life?
 

Is theatre concerned about ecological destruction, global warming, massive biodiversity loss, ocean pollution, melting ice caps, increasing forest fires and extreme weather events? Can theatre become an active part of the ecosystem? Theatre has been watching human impact on the planet for many years, but it is finding it difficult to deal with this problem.

Is theatre worried about the human condition as it is being shaped in the 21st century, where the citizen is manipulated by political and economic interests, media networks and opinion-forming companies? Where social media, as much as they facilitate it, are the great alibi for communication, because they provide the necessary safe distance from the Other? A pervasive sense of fear of the Other, the different, the Stranger, dominates our thoughts and actions.

Can theatre function as a workshop for the coexistence of differences without taking into account the bleeding trauma?

The bleeding trauma invites us to reconstruct the Myth. And in the words of Heiner Müller “Myth is an aggregate, a machine to which always new and different machines can be connected. It transports the energy until the growing velocity will explode the cultural field” and I would add the field of barbarity.

Can theatre spotlights shed light on social trauma and stop misleadingly shedding light on itself?

Questions that do not allow definitive answers, because theatre exists and endures thanks to unanswered questions.

Questions triggered by Dionysus, passing through his birthplace, the orchestra of the ancient theatre, and continuing his silent refugee journey through landscapes of war, today, on World Theatre Day.

Let us look into the eyes of Dionysus, the ecstatic god of theatre and Myth who unites the past, the present and the future, the child of two births, by Zeus and Semele, expresser of fluid identities, female and male, angry and kind, divine and animal, on the verge between madness and reason, order and chaos, an acrobat on the borderline between life and death. Dionysus poses a fundamental ontological question “what is it all about?” a question that drives the creator towards an ever-deeper investigation into the root of myth and the multiple dimensions of the human enigma.

We need new narrative ways aimed at cultivating memory and shaping a new moral and political responsibility to emerge from the multiform dictatorship of the present-day Middle Ages.

Theodoros Terzopoulos

Translated from the original Greek: Yiola Klitou / Cyprus Centre of I.T.I.

Short Film Presentation of the World Theatre Day Message by Theodoros Terzopoulos

Premiere Date: March 27, 2025
Where to Watch: YouTube channels of the International Theatre Institute ITI and the Cyprus Centre of ITI

A powerful cinematic interpretation of the World Theatre Day 2025 Message, this short film captures the essence of Theodoros Terzopoulos’ vision through striking imagery and evocative locations in Athens.

A co-production of the International Theatre Institute and the Cyprus Centre of the International Theatre Institute, the film immerses the audience in the profound message of World Theatre Day. The production of the short film was undertaken by Long Run Productions and was directed by Nikos Pastras.

Filming Locations in Athens: A Symbolic Choice
Each filming site -archaeological and non- was carefully selected to enhance the meaning and impact of the Μessage, highlighting the connection between theatre and world cultural heritage, starting with Greece as the birthplace:
• Theatre of Dionysus Eleuthereus, Odeon of Herodes Atticus & Ancient Agora of Athens (Acropolis Hill) – A tribute to the origins of theatre and its deep connection with the city.
• Attis Theatre – Terzopoulos’ personal artistic space, where his voice finds its natural resonance, capturing a more intimate and intellectual perspective.