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To: Thea-Net Dear Friends, Please post the following to your discussion list. Thank you. Sincerely, Jeffrey Eric Jenkins "Acts of Theatre: The Prague Quadrennial" THEATER WEEK -- August 21, 1995 At the ATHE 95 conference in San Francisco, participants were exhorted by Ellen Stewart of La MaMa ETC -- who received ATHE's Career Achievement Award in Professional Theatre -- to "extend beyond yourselves." Ms. Stewart was referring to our tendency in the United States to sometimes ignore the "world" of theatre outside our national boundaries. In the August 21, 1995 issue of THEATER WEEK magazine -- on newsstands now or coming in the next week -- ATHE member Jeffrey Eric Jenkins explores the diverse international energies experienced this summer at the Prague Quadrennial. "Acts of Theater: The Prague Quadrennial" discusses issues of dwindling international government support for the arts and raises questions regarding the mission of theatre in our expanding global culture. Below is an excerpt from "Acts of Theater: The Prague Quadrennial" by Jeffrey Eric Jenkins. THEATER WEEK -- August 21, 1995: "The original Prague Quadrennial in 1967 was an outgrowth of the Brazilian Art Biennials of the 1950s and 1960s. After winning top awards for scenic design in four successive biennial exhibitions, representatives of the Czech and Slovak theater communities were encouraged to create an international exhibition in Prague. The first PQ - dedicated to stagings of Mozart operas in the city where Don Giovanni was first performed - was followed in 1968 by the so-called 'Prague Spring.' When budding free expression was crushed under Soviet tank tracks in August of that year, it seemed as if the first PQ might have been the last. "Nearly thirty years later, though, the PQ still manages to provide an international home for the exchange of artistic ideas. The Czech Theater Institute and the International Organization of Theater Artists and Technicians (OISTAT) continue to find creative ways of funding the exhibition by emphasizing its importance to the Czech government - no matter which regime is in power. However, given the current economic climate - in which the term 'market economy' can be used as a linguistic bludgeon - the PQ will be deemed important to the Czech government only if it means jobs and capital for the country. Ironically, as borders between countries have opened with the fall of the Berlin Wall, governmental pocketbooks have slammed shut." --Excerpted from "Acts of Theater: The Prague Quadrennial" by Jeffrey Eric Jenkins, THEATER WEEK -- August 21, 1995. END OF MESSAGE