aactWorldFest Returns to Venice Theatre This Month
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Loading... - Maria Laine
- 09 Jun 2022
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Ever-shifting issues dealing with world politics, visas and Covid precautions have made scheduling this month’s aactWorldFest at Venice Theatre a bigger challenge than usual. (VT has hosted the biennial international community theater festival several times since 2010; it had to be canceled two years ago as the pandemic raged.)
When we spoke with Murray Chase, VT’s producing executive director, he had just gotten off the phone with a theater troupe based in Bangladesh still hoping to perform at the festival during its run June 20-26. But the complications of paperwork related to world travel have made scheduling a more last-minute endeavor than ever.
“We have another troupe, from the Central African Republic, that wants to come and would be a great addition to the festival,” says Chase. “But the CAR isn’t issuing performance visas, so they have to go to Cameroon to get them—and were told their first chance for an appointment would be in mid-July”—after the festival is over. “Now they have a new appointment June 13, so we won’t know until the week before” if they can make it.
In the meantime, the WorldFest will welcome 13 theater troupes, presenting a total of 14 different shows, from 11 countries. As always, the festival works to prove that language is no barrier, as the troupes mix music, puppetry, clowning and video projections to tell stories with universal appeal.
In the lineup as of now:
From Armenia, the Yerevan State Puppet Theatre will return, with two shows. The Wolf is an Armenian fairy tale brought to life through puppets, shadows, lighting and more; The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime is an adaptation of the popular British novel translated to Armenian with the permission of author Mark Haddon. Read More...
