Artistic Development Committee
Artistic Resources

  		 

Ten Artistic Suggestions
We on the Artistic Committee have been working hard during the past year in order to assist the AITA/IATA Council and the Joint Committees for festival play selection in their work.  Soon it will be time for you to recommend groups from your regions who want to apply to bring work to the 2009 Mondial in Monaco, our organization’s most prestigious international festival.  We urge you to prepare vigorously for this application process, and make every effort to ensure that important groups in your region apply to the Mondial, and that the productions you recommend are high in artistic quality.
 
            In order to help you identify those shows with high artistic merit, we’ve drawn-up the useful list of suggestions that we’ve received from the AITA/IATA membership over the past eight months, and that you’ll find published here on our web page as the TEN ARTISTIC SUGGESTIONS.  We hope you find them useful in your own selection procedures, and we’d love to hear your response to them if you care to contact us.
 
            We also ask you to remember that you may recommend more than one play and theatre group from your region, if you feel that more than one has artistic merit that should be represented on the festival stages.  In fact, we on the Artistic Committee welcome festival programs that display artistic diversity and originality.  Our AITA/IATA festivals need more applications from groups whose work has already been recognized in some way in their home regions, and truly reflects the troupe’s working methods or national cultural context.  We feel that we must all strive to make our world festivals of theatre true encounters of different cultures!
 
 
SUGGESTIONS FROM THE AITA/IATA ARTISTIC DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE FOR SELECTING FESTIVAL PLAYS
 
 
  1. Clarity of the production.
  2. The message or theme of the production.
  3. The performance should “touch,” “transport,” emotionally involve the audience.
  4. When interpreting characters, the actors should embody and experience their characters vocally, physically and spiritually.
  5. The production should contain very expressive visual elements: the use of space, the use of theatrical metaphors, costume design, set design and lighting design.
  6. The play should relate to, challenge, or be relevant to the modern world, even though it may have an historical subject.
  7. Performances with innovative dramatic structures or production approaches are preferred over those that are conventional or traditional.
  8. Some productions may be chosen for their artistic diversity, so audiences can enjoy a variety of theatre forms.
  9. Plays that have depth and sincerity of feeling are preferred over those that are trivial in their impact.
  10. The production should be appropriate and understandable in the context of an international event.