Love Theatre Day is Today!

Action shot from the fabulous School of Rock

Blimey, I nearly missed this. I've just discovered that it's #LoveTheatreDay and if there's one thing I do love, it's the theatre. I was even at the theatre last night to see Son of a Preacher Man in Wimbledon - great performances and music, the writing - not so much, enjoyable nevertheless. But I digress. What is this #LoveTheatreDay thing, I hear (some of) you ask?

This is an initiative run by Mar Dixon in association with The Stage newspaper according to this article. It's a social media initiative to encourage us to celebrate theatre around the world on Twitter and other social media platforms, hence the hashtag and it's happening today - Wednesday 15 November 2017.

There are three themes throughout the day:

1. #Backstage between 10am and midday to go behind the scenes and see parts of the theatre you would never normally get to see. I guess we've missed that one, but you can check the hashtag for what happened. I love backstage. There's a certain smell to it. It's very hard to describe. It's a nice smell and I'm guessing it's a mixture of wood, workshops and people, but it's unique to a theatre and unmistakable if you've ever experienced it.

2. #AskATheatre between 3pm and 5pm where you can talk direction to the creative teams about their shows and ask the questions you've always wanted to.

3. #Showtime between 7pm and 10pm when people will show what they're seeing at the theatre and what happens off stage during a show.

This campaign is for theatres, performing arts organisations and the general public to celebrate what they love about theatre and to encourage more people to go to the theatre. I think it's a great idea. And one that just wouldn't work without mobile phones. The ability to take pictures, write down our thoughts, record video and audio and distribute it easily and quickly to a wide audience is amazing. This certainly couldn't have happened 10 years ago. Technically, we could do all these things, but the uptake wasn't big enough to reach the mainstream. But today, it's a whole other story. One thing to be grateful for with the ubiquity of the technology.

There is something special about the theatre that keeps drawing me back and anything that encourages other people to enjoy that special something is a good thing in my book. So check out the hashtags, take pictures and share your stories from backstage, off-stage and in the audience and have a great #LoveTheatreDay.

The Safety Curtain from The Ashcroft Theatre in Croydon.

Day 15/30 NabloPoMo