YEREVAN, MARCH 27, ARMENPRESS. World Theater Day is celebrated annually on March 27 worldwide.

It was celebrated for the first time in France, and later spread globally.

On this occasion ARMENPRESS correspondent talked to representatives of the theater sphere.

According to Armen Elbakyan, artistic director of the Sundukyan national academic theater, theater is the small model of the world, which presents reality through arts.

“The audience frees themselves from the surrounding chaos by coming to the theater. Unfortunately, during the present days, not only in Armenia but also globally the times aren’t theatrical, because time flies very quickly and the playwrights don’t manage to walk along with it”, he said.

According to him, the most important figure in the theater is the poet, the author. “The theater will improve the situation when the plays will reflect the pulse of time”, he said.

“Theater is a lifestyle; it’s my life with all its manifestations. The theater is mine, I am the theater’s”, actor Tigran Nersisyan says.

He said he sees a positive growth in the theatrical sphere in the past years, however there are many things to do.

“The improvement and development of theatrical art is linked with the situation of our country, our society, and if the social issues are solved, theater will develop as well”, he said.

Theater director Hrachya Gasparyan says theater is his life, the joy, pleasure, the sphere for which he was born.

“Everyday when going to work I am happy and I don’t imagine myself without theater. In my opinion theater is a phenomena which makes the people noble, ambitious, interesting”, he said.

World Theatre Day was initiated in 1961 by the International Theatre Institute (ITI). It is celebrated annually on the 27th March by ITI Centres and the international theatre community. Various national and international theatre events are organized to mark this occasion. One of the most important of these is the circulation of the World Theatre Day International Message through which at the invitation of ITI, a figure of world stature shares his or her reflections on the theme of Theatre and a Culture of Peace. The first World Theatre Day International Message was written by Jean Cocteau (France) in 1962. It was first in Helsinki, and then in Vienna at the 9th World Congress of the ITI in June 1961 that President Arvi Kivimaa proposed on behalf of the Finnish Centre of the International Theatre Institute that a World Theatre Day be instituted. The proposal, backed by the Scandinavian centres, was carried with acclamation.