World Theatre Day - March 27 2026!

Flatness has taken over our lives. It’s on our smartphones, our workstations, and our televisions - a flat, black mirror that reflects back a simplified version of ourselves and our world.

As artists, we see the world differently. When we look at the windows of a city or the strangers on transit, we aren't seeing objects; we are seeing subjects. Each person is a fully realized character in their own play, navigating a spectrum of unspoken dreams and complex emotions.

I think back to my old high school binder. It wasn't just a container; it was a layered, ever-expanding metaphor for learning. It held notes on top of notes, highlighted edges, and the physical traces of my own fingerprints. It had depth.

Yet, the modern world often asks us to retreat into the flat surface. We are pressured to reduce individuals to a single post, a single opinion, or a single identity. We have even applied this flattening to the land, reducing it to "property." It is always easier to control an object than to relate to a subject.

This is why our work is essential.

Many Indigenous artists and mentors I’ve walked alongside, such as Chantal Chagnon and the late Troy Emery Twigg, have taught me the profound weight of "All my relations." This is the paramount lesson of our craft: our relations matter. When we refuse to see people as a "single story," we can finally stand in solidarity with them.

Centuries ago, we were told the world was flat and that we were the center of the universe. We were wrong. We discovered a theatre of the universe that is interconnected, layered, and vast. Today, as Artificial Intelligence and digital monitors threaten to flatten our experience once again, Theatre remains the antidote.

Theatre rejects the flat screen for the layered stage. It brings multiple disciplines together to witness the furthest thing from a digital experience: humanity in all its nuance. In the dark of the house, an audience sits in relation not just to the story, but to one another.

On this World Theatre Day, I invite you to turn away from the screen. Notice the person sitting nearest to you. Find the theatre in the everyday. It is through this world-experiencing that we become better humans, trading the easy option of flatness for the beautiful complexity of being alive together.

Theatre Terrific 

Artistic Director, Kevin Jesuino