This article is reprinted in full, with permission from the authour, from 2am Theatre.

Odds are the first four words ever spo­ken were “tell me a story.” And the next four? “Once upon a time…” It’s why we have cave paint­ings, sculp­ture, the­atre, film, tele­vi­sion both scripted and “real.” Every­thing in our world is crafted to com­mu­ni­cate some­thing, whether mem­ory or infor­ma­tion, asso­ci­a­tion or emo­tion. Everything–and everyone–has a story.

As the­atre artists, no mat­ter our dis­ci­pline or tech­nique, we find, cre­ate and tell sto­ries to our audi­ences. What if we let them have a turn? Would that lead to a stronger bond, a bet­ter appre­ci­a­tion of what we all do? Could it let them get a glimpse behind the cur­tain, a look at the “process” to see how it’s done?

That’s the idea–and the meta-idea–behind 360.

What is 360?

A gath­er­ing, much like this, but with­out com­put­ers, iPhones, what-have-you. And you all tell sto­ries. It’s just that sim­ple, really.
Why 360?

Your story can start any­where, go any­where. It may be a mem­ory, some­thing you’ve done, some­place you’ve gone. You have six min­utes–or 360 sec­onds–to bring your story full cir­cle. The time limit helps to keep you focused, and also helps to keep the event moving.
All you need is a space and a timer.

Let the peo­ple know, see who shows up. We’ll even pro­vide the logo and other images you might need for sig­nage, mail­ing lists, posters, etc. The license is free–all we ask is that you credit it back to us here at 2amtheatre.com.

Unlike the Moth and other sto­ry­telling con­cepts, this can be as for­mal or infor­mal as you like. It can be made up of invited sto­ry­tellers or open to any­one in the crowd. If you want to guar­an­tee a theme, you might invite a few peo­ple and give them a prompt before­hand, but then open it up and see what their sto­ries inspire from the crowd. You want to stand, sit, doesn’t mat­ter, what­ever feels right.
What kind of space?

Any space will do. Any the­atre at any size can set up a 360. If you’re Actors The­atre of Louisville, do it in the mez­za­nine. If you’re River­run The­atre, you do it in a book­store that’s one of your sponsors.

You could move from spon­sor to spon­sor, bring­ing peo­ple into a cof­fee shop one month, a win­ery the next, a book­store or library the next. Now, you’re doing some­thing even more con­crete than adver­tis­ing their busi­ness, you’re bring­ing actual peo­ple into that business.
Was it dif­fi­cult to set up?

Not at all. The idea’s been per­co­lat­ing for some time, but once we decided to do it, I just walked in to our book­store spon­sor, asked if we could do it. Then, a Face­book event page. A word on Twit­ter, a note here and there. I did not send a mail­ing, I did not go to the radio or the news­pa­per, I didn’t even put it up on our web­site. This was as under-the-radar as it gets. And then, one week later, I walked in the store with fif­teen min­utes to spare and we did this thing.

You can do it that quickly and eas­ily, too. I know you can.
The idea is not the pol­ished, prac­ticed story.

That’s for the Moth and oth­ers. This is not a com­pe­ti­tion, this is not a show. If the sto­ries are pol­ished and prac­ticed, that’s icing on the cake. This is mainly to engage your audi­ence, your com­mu­nity. It’s a way to share with them the joy of craft­ing and telling a clear and enter­tain­ing story. And it really works.
The pos­si­bil­i­ties are endless.

Maybe you archive sto­ries, record them, share them on your web­site. You become a de facto Story Corps for your neigh­bor­hood, city, etc. Maybe you craft a larger work–I’m sorry, maybe you “devise” a work–based on some sto­ries for a wider audi­ence. Maybe you host poetry edi­tions in April for National Poetry Month.

Eric Ziegen­hagen posted a link over on Twit­ter the other day, which was an idea every inde­pen­dent book­store should steal. (He’s right, by the way, in case any inde­pen­dent book­stores are read­ing this.) 360 is very much the same idea, only with your own sto­ries instead of books.

I hosted the very first 360 this past week­end as a River­run The­atre event at the Vil­lage Lights Book­store in Madi­son, Indi­ana. We kept it low-key, wanted to see who would show up. I com­pared it to a restau­rant hav­ing a soft open­ing. (Eric Z. ought to like that anal­ogy.) What amazed me was not that it worked–though it did–or that peo­ple came–though they did–but how the evening played out…
Light­ning in a bottle.

We had a small group, quiet at first, wait­ing and won­der­ing how the con­cept worked. (This was all right, the book­store is small, very inti­mate.) I started the evening off with a story to show how it was done, fin­ished with sec­onds to spare.

Once the ice was bro­ken, the sto­ries flowed.

As the time­keeper and host, I would wave at the speaker at the three minute mark and then again at the one minute mark.

For a timer, I used my iPhone. When it counted down to zero, it would play Take Five by Dave Brubeck. The book­store owner loved that; Brubeck’s on their speak­ers most of the time. You could use a stop­watch and a bell. Any­thing will work.

No one ran over­time, although we do plan for that–if you’re in the mid­dle of a thought, fin­ish the thought. If you’re nowhere near fin­ish­ing your story, if there’s time, we’d have an “over­time” list for peo­ple to come back up and fin­ish in three min­utes. But that wasn’t an issue this time around.

What did sur­prise me, and what’s per­fectly log­i­cal in ret­ro­spect, is that one story trig­gered another and on through the event. The con­nec­tions weren’t so obvi­ous as if it were a planned, themed set of sto­ries, but there were clear themes and through-lines from one story to the next. None of us really knew one another, we’ve all led very dif­fer­ent lives, but all of the sto­ries con­nected and res­onated. And that res­o­nance was excit­ing, because it wasn’t scripted, it wasn’t pro­scribed or planned. It just happened.

It was the joy of cre­at­ing a larger patch­work of sto­ries, shared with every­one in the room.

By the end of the event, every­one was wired, buzzing, talk­ing, chat­ting, shar­ing more and more. They had seen what we do, if only on a small scale. It wasn’t like watch­ing a lec­ture or an open rehearsal, it was participation.

They didn’t get a look at the process. They were the process.

They had seen how excit­ing it is to be in the room with the story being told. They had seen how dif­fer­ent it was from the fourth wall of tele­vi­sion or film. And those who had never come to a River­run show–those who only came because they’re book­store patrons or hap­pened upon the list­ing and were curious–they’re com­ing to our next show. Some didn’t even know we were doing live the­atre in town–now they’re on our mail­ing list.

Some had never been to live the­atre. Now, they want to come.
So what have we learned?

This is a fun, easy way to con­nect with and develop your audience.

It’s a great way to sup­port and engage your spon­sors and bring some of your magic–and patrons–through their doors.

You can set it up and pro­duce it at the drop of hat. The only real cost to you is the hat.

All you need is a space, a sign, a timer and some­one to act as a host.

Want to do it? Go right ahead.

Very soon, we’ll be set­ting up a sep­a­rate sec­tion of the site to host 360 infor­ma­tion, news, sto­ries, etc. If you want to record any sto­ries either as audio or video and upload them to YouTube, Vimeo or another video site, we’ll hap­pily embed them here as part of the 360 website.

This will also be where you can go for pro­mo­tional lan­guage, logos, images and more for mail­ings and PR purposes.

As I said, the license is free–see the Cre­ative Com­mons license below for details.

And you know, this would be an excel­lent instant event to pro­duce for World The­atre Day on March 27th…

Last year, Ian MacKenzie, a writer from Toronto, came up with the idea of a World Theatre Day meme. For those of you that are new to this concept (and I certainly was), Wikipedia defines a meme as

a catchphrase or concept that spreads rapidly from person to person via the Internet, largely through Internet-based email, blogs, forums, Internet-based social networking sites and Internet-based instant messaging. The term derives from the original concept of memes, although it has come to refer to a much more narrowly defined category of cultural information.

Ian’s idea was to take a picture of us standing on our favorite theatre books–the books that had supported us throughout our career in the theatre. You can see the results here.

Us WTD10 faciliators loved this idea, and wanted to do it again this year. So, we are asking people to create a short video, 1-2 minutes long, on the theme of “Why I love the theatre” OR “What theatre means to me.” Once you’ve created your video, go to this URL for further instructions about how to share it with the world.

Here is mine:

And look for lots more over the coming weeks!

–Rebecca

I just got this email from Danielle Mari Filas, the Artistic Director of the Rosebriar Shakespeare Company in Groveport, OH.

My company, along with Britt Kline of the Columbus Civic Theatre in Columbus OH is presenting Chickspeare! as part of both World Theatre Day and as part of SWAN (Support Women Artists Now) Day on Saturday, March 27.  As both holidays fall on the same day, we are doing double duty– we’re presenting a series of traditionally male Shakespearean scenes performed by local female actors in order to both celebrate World Theatre Day and to benefit women in the arts in honor of SWAN Day.  We’ll be performing at Columbus Civic Theater, 3837 Indianola Ave., Columbus, OH 43214-3755.

Rosebriar Shakespeare Company’s website is http://www.rosebriarshakespeare.org.  We are opening a show within the next week and a half, so our site is currently devoted to that.  Once the show is open, though, we will update the site with WTD/SWAN information.
http://www,facebook.com/RosebriarShakespeare
http://www.twitter.com/RosebriarShakes

Columbus Civic Theatre
http://www.columbuscivic.org/
http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/group.php?gid=24693873019&ref=ts

Thanks, Danielle!

I’m excited. It’s January, and last weekend we had our first facilitator’s meeting. World Theatre Day is only a little over two months away, and the planning is starting…

First a bit of background. If you’re new here, welcome. This blog was started in 2009. I work as a theatre publicist in Vancouver, BC, Canada, and for the past three years, I have done publicity for our local WTD celebrations. I have also been blogging for a little over a year. Last year, while we were planning our WTD celebrations, I started thinking “what if we made WTD a truly international celebration? What if there was a place on the internet where people could share their WTD stories, and also get information about WTD, its mandate, and ideas about how to celebrate it in their own communities?”

So, I put the word out through Twitter, and in short order, we assembled an amazing, skilled team of facilitators from all over the world. Some of whom, while they were theatre artists, had never heard of World Theatre Day.

We got the blessing of the ITI, and this blog was the result. If you page back, or look at our Tumblog, you’ll see all the amazing and awesome ways that theatre artists from all over the world celebrated March 27, 2009.

This year, we need your help to make WTD 2010 an even greater success!

Here are some things you can do to celebrate World Theatre Day in your community:

• Go to a play, and take a friend.
• Organize a play reading in your community
• Write, videotape, or record why you love theatre, and email it to frabbaurt633@tumblr.com
  
• Read the World Theatre Day International Address (this year’s has not been published yet, but you can believe the second it is, it’ll be on this blog!)  prior to curtain at your theatre, or include it as a handout in your theatre’s program. Ask a local favorite actor or dignitary to read it. If you can, record this reading by photos, video or audio, and email it (or the link, if you are uploading it to Flickr, or YouTube) to frabbaurt633@tumblr.com. It will automatically post to the Tumblog.
• If you have a blog, write a post about what you are doing to celebrate World Theatre Day in your area, then email the URL to findbex@gmail.com. We will cross-post your entry on the WTD blog.
• If you don’t have a blog, please email your story directly to us, and we will post it on the blog.
• Offer backstage tours of your theatre to the local community
• Offer open rehearsals to your community
• Offer discounted or free tickets.
• Offer open readings to your community.
• Share photos of your production and photos of your cast and crew with your audience to the World Theatre Day media hub.
• Distribute theatre-related books, scripts etc. around your part of the world for example, Book Crossings (http://www.bookcrossing.com), ‘release your books’ in a public place – theatre foyers; coffee shops; park benches etc. Put a sticker on the front saying something like, ‘I’m free. Please give me a home. Happy World Theatre Day!’
• Work up a flash mob. Gather people together in a particular place at a particular time to ‘do’ something theatre-related e.g., everyone gathered reads a sonnet in a supermarket or just freezes at a particular time reading an obviously theatre-related book, then moves on after 1 minute’s freeze. Guaranteed to attract attention!

One new thing we are going to try to facilitate this year is to make connections, via technology, between theatres in different cities, or even countries. If you are planning on having a WTD celebration party, let us know, and we will try to hook you up, via Skype or some other means, with another city who is doing the same thing.

After all, World Theatre Day is about us celebrating how amazing the work that we do every day is!

–Rebecca

Do you make or love theater? Do you live in the world?

Then we want to see your stuff.

Submissions are now open to the world to add to the World Theatre Day Tumblr media feed. Send us your images, videos, and short bursts of text to http://tinyurl.com/wtdmedia (yes, that’ll open up an email to us), and check out the international extravaganza of theater media in our sidebar.

Be sure to tell us who you are, and where you’re from. You can even include an URL to your website or blog.

Detailed instructions for submitting your material (do it today!) are right here on this blog. And yes, if you want to participate but don’t make theater yourself, send a link of your favorite theater and tell us why you love it!

From Amanda Bell, Company Manager, 23^rd Productions, based in Brisbane, Australia.

Our plan is to take a video camera to the WTD performance of our current production of Martin McDonagh’s The Pillowman. Pre-show, we will film mini-interviews with our audience, asking them their thoughts about theatre in Brisbane.  Before the performance, we will read Augusto Boal’s address to our audience.  We will then film the performance.  Finally, we will film our audience’s thoughts after the performance is finished.  We would then like to upload this footage to the World Theatre Day Blog.  Essentially, we are taking our audience’s usually momentary pre- and post- show ideas, and turning them into a permanent piece of our production.

Follow 23rd Productions on Twitter.

Check back on March 27 for the footage.

From Kate Foy

Queensland Theatre Company’s March 26 opening night after-party for Polly Stenham’s ‘That Face’ will kick on through the midnight chimes into Friday making it the first global event for March 27 World Theatre Day 2009. There is a hotlink to this blog from the Company’s website.

The social media networks in Brisbane are at work spreading the details on the venue. The idea is for as many of the Brisbane theatre community as possible – those performing or rehearsing that day – as well as their supporters and even an audience member or two, will join Queensland Theatre Company is celebrating ‘our day’ together.

Images and sounds from what could be the biggest after-party of the year will be up on the WTD Tumblr site as soon as possible after the show.

Follow Queensland Theatre Company on Twitter @qldtheatreco

See elsewhere on the blog for Queensland Shakespeare Ensemble’s plans for WTD, and if you are on the Sunshine Coast there is a Flash Mob event at 12 noon on Friday. People will be gathering at the Sunshine Plaza for a bit of ‘invisible theatre’ – spontaneous laughter for 1 minute. Fun!

From  G.Gopalakrishnan, Kerala, India:
I am a theatre associated with Malayalam Theatre.
I write, act and direct plays for adults as well as for children. Our group was established in 1945, and we have  celebrated World Theatre Day since 1992.
This year we are performing a play, PURASKARAM.

When: Wednesday, March 25th, 5pm

Where: Balch Arena Theatre at Tufts University

What: Staged reading of PeaceWomen by Dr. Susan Corso

PeaceWomen is the name of a theatre piece I wrote about the female Nobel Peace Prize Laureates. Since 1901, twelve women have won the Nobel Peace Prize. Just twelve. Their writings and their lives fascinate me.

Because I, too, Nobel Laureate or not, am a peacewoman, I spent many years reading the words of these women, and because of my theatre background, it made sense to me to create a solo performance piece as an opportunity for a dedicated performer. So far I haven’t found that actor, but I will.

What I have created is an invitation to have a theatre community do a reading of my piece for World Theatre Day! Am I excited! First, the director has cast women and men as the peacewomen, and the reading is colorblind as well.

More info at http://www.odemagazine.com/blogs/readers_blog/5388/peacewomen_theatre_and_peace

From Cambiare Productions:

I am pleased to announce that on World Theatre Day, March 27, 2009, Cambiare Productions in association with the Austin Circle of Theatres will be presenting a staged reading of Caryl Churchill’s Seven Jewish Children (.pdf) at the Dougherty Arts Center here in Austin.

Featuring some of the very finest performers that Austin has to offer, to be followed by a discussion facilitated by Robert Faires and C. Denby Swanson, this is the perfect opportunity to demonstrate the power of spoken word, and to really dig into discussion of a piece that has really caused such a firestorm in the theatrical (and blogospherical) world.

BUT WAIT! THERE’S MORE!

This is WORLD Theatre Day after all, and with the gracious permission of Ms. Churchill and her representatives, we will be  livestreaming the event! That’s right fake people who live in my computer, you too can witness our event in real time. It will be embedded here on CambiareProductions.com so keep you eyes peeled.

I am dreadfully excited to be able to present this, and to work with such fabulous folks in doing so. Whatever your take on the controversial Seven Jewish Children, it’s a powerful piece and will elicit reactions, and isn’t that the point of theatre? To get through?

Spread the word near and far.
If you’re in Austin come on down,
it’s free and it will be fascinating.
If you’re not in Austin?
Log on and check it out.

I know that I plan to watch the stream of the reading and I hope that you will also take part.  This is an easy way to celebrate World Theatre Day from your home!