World Day of Theater for Children and Young People

March 20^th every year is celebrated as World Day of Theater for Children and Young People. It is an opportunity to attract the public's attention to theatrical arts for children and young people. On World Day of Theater for Children and Young People, all over the world, theater practitioners for children and young people organize special events to highlight the stage for young audiences in their countries and communities.

History of World Day of Theater for Children and Young People

The World Day campaign enables National Centers, individual members, companies, arts organizations, scholars, teachers, artists, practitioners and others interested in theater to audiences, young authors connect with the idea of World Day and 'clarify' children's right to see plays and works of art. Individuals from around the world are invited to promote the World Day message and consider additional activities - large or small. Each year the ASSITEJ Centers around the globe organize activities ranging from conferences, performances, seminars and special media events, connected to #takeachildtothetheatre.

How to celebrate World Day of Theater for Children and Young People

Children cannot bring themselves to the theater. The World Theater Day for Children and Adolescents, celebrated on 20 March each year, is a call to acknowledge the dependence of children on the adults around them if they want to be exposed to the arts in general and the live stage in particular. For this reason, we say "Take a kid to the theater today".

Theatrical occurs in a particular time and space, and its nature is transient and of that particular moment. It is about the invisible relationships created in the moment, unlocking the human heart, sowing the seeds of empathy and developing a tendency to be curious and inquisitive that can affect the development of the whole person and their future course in life.

But connecting with the theater, appreciating the theater, can require effort from the audience involved. It is not a passive, receptive function. It is an activity that requires attention, participation, openness, curiosity, and critical thinking. It requires total participation - not just intellectual interaction but physical, emotional, and some might say mental. As this full participation takes place, multiple senses are being stimulated simultaneously and the experience is rich, powerful, and transformative.

Many parents understand the value of reading - whether they are readers or not. They understand its functional value and recognize its ability to be a real-world passport into new realms for children and young people. They understand that reading is not something to give up, even though the early stages can be challenging and frustrating. Instead, it is a key that can open the whole world to young people that a thought experienced in a book can be transformed into a direction for life… They want to find the book. Books will capture children's imaginations enough to take them through the barrier of learning to read. Why isn't the cinema reading experience similarly recognized?

Theater is not something to give up after a bad experience. It is not something that is forced into a particular pattern or theme. It can be hard and frustrating work, as well as exciting and fascinating. It can take time for the theater's 'readers' to fully appreciate the many levels of signs, sensations and meanings presented. But as a distilling experience, it gives the audience the opportunity to "really" see what's there, with fresh eyes, to see objects, people, relationships, signs as they go new ways, and at the same time discovering and interpreting their meaning.

Theater is a unique experience of personal meaning for children, which requires participation and the quality of this participation will improve over time as children and young people become more attuned to the experience. Experience watching a play.

The idea of stage knowledge is not fleeting but rather an important and universal window into reading and understanding the world. Besides, how urgently these skills are needed in a world that is increasingly hostile to children, and where so many children are abandoned and abandoned due to poverty, war, conflict and displacement.

The challenge for artists and arts activists is to ensure that all adults who are able to #Takeachildtothetheatretoday understand their responsibility to a child who may never have met the live stage without their interventions and efforts to make all children as literate as they did them to be able to read and write.