Theatre saved my life. By the time TheTheatreTimes.com appeared, I had already crossed one continent and one ocean. Looking at the Broadway lights standing at the corner of 42nd Street and 6th Avenue after rehearsal for my first New York show I wondered how I ended up at that very corner. It was theatre that showed me that the other world is possible. The world whose language is not the sound of bombs and gunshots and is passionately celebrated by corrupt politicians in my home country. Five years ago TheTheatreTimes.com was born. I discovered the website while looking for information about contemporary theatre in southeast Europe. With one click on the link, a wide space of the world theatre opened right in front of me. I started reading about theatre creators and thinkers, creating in the far corners of the world. Quickly it became clear to me that this treasure must be shared. Links to various articles were sent to my colleagues in Serbia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Romania…I always believed that information provided continuously has the power to change the mind frames of people. Now, after five years of TheTheatreTimes.com, I see that the theatre frames are moving and shifting in my home country. Is that because of TheTheatreTimes.com links I shared? I do not know but I would like to believe that. Inspired by what I have discovered on this platform soon I started wishing to write for TheTheatreTimes.com. The spirit of changing the dangerous territorialism in which many theatre communities have trapped themselves into global localism was a mission that I discovered behind all the articles in TheTheatreTimes.com. If it was because of fear of not being understood writing in this second language of mine I would have started much earlier. I already said that theatre saved my life. Theatre has done that for me literally and figuratively. That is a different story that waits for another time to be told.

TheTheatreTimes.com provides necessary internationalism for many unrepresented and underrepresented theatre communities and cultures. It opens up a space for creating a discourse for a different kind of theatre that will not be bound by the language and market-driven metrics. I see TheTheatreTimes.com being an agora that connects analog and digital realities of contemporary theatre-making. As a migrant artist born into the Slavic language but creating and living within English speaking culture, TheTheatreTimes.com allows me to transcend the search for my artistic roots into a passionate international career. Opening the view into other theatre cultures TheTheatreTimes.com is supporting a strong sense of global localism. The local theatre ecosystems have the opportunity to connect and exchange their critical and artistic perspectives. For me as a theatre creator having a source such as TheTheatreTimes.com is priceless. Moreover, the opportunity to write for TheTheatreTimes.com presenting the Canadian theatre and at the same time having a long view of my Serbian heritage is what makes this platform so unique to me.

In the last five years, I had an immense pleasure viewing the world theatre in a more connected and immediate way thanks to TheTheatreTimes.com. I am excited about this forward-looking platform and my engagement with it.

This post was written by the author in their personal capacity.The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not reflect the view of The Theatre Times, their staff or collaborators.

This post was written by Stefan Dzeparoski.

The views expressed here belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect our views and opinions.