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Center for international theatre development

23 July 2024

Dear friends,

Thank you all for the continued outpouring of support and love in the wake of our dear friend Philip Arnoult’s passing. What’s been most striking is the commonality that many of you have spoken of: the absence of Philip in your lives in ways you did not expect. We on the CITD team have felt it too.

Philip created a strong CITD team, and we continue to carry Philip's legacy forward with our ongoing projects in Hungary, Poland, and Ukraine.

Please don't hesitate to reach out to Brandice if you have any questions or need assistance. If you'd like to make a gift in Philip's memory, please click the link below.

ARNOULT MEMORIAL FUND

-The CITD team
Yury Urnov, John Freedman, Howard Shalwitz, Susan Stroupe, and Brandice Thompson

SERVICES

"These spiraling dark times in East-Central Europe and here in our country demand thoughtful and serious responses; acknowledging the impediments and dangers, while embracing the imperatives and possibilities."

Philip Arnoult, 2021

SINCE 1990 we have developed and nurtured long term relationships and international collaborations between artists in the United States and around the globe by building on founder Philip Arnoult's 20 years of investigating, producing, and supporting international works as the founder and leader of the Baltimore Theatre Project (1971-1990).

CONNECTIONS

We foster long-term, meaningful connections between inspired theatre-makers and unique thinkers by moving groundbreaking artists, bold projects, and powerful ideas around the globe.

PUBLICATIONS

Our four online publications seek to illuminate and strengthen the international theatre conversation between US professionals and young, emerging artists and companies in Russia, Eastern, and Central Europe.

EXPEDITIONS

Traveling is at the heart of our work. We facilitate several artist-centered expeditions each year, focusing on exchanges between the US and Eastern Europe.

ABOUT

The Center for International Theatre Development (CITD) was born out of a need that founder Philip Arnoult saw in American artists and audiences to experience international work, particularly from parts of the world they might not see otherwise. He founded the organization in 1990 to unite performing artists from around the globe to work collaboratively on cross-cultural projects.

CITD finds creative, hard-working people doing interesting work, connects them to artists with similar interests, and finds a way to give them time and space to create together.

We've been working in Eastern and Central Europe for over 40 years, with additional decade-long projects in The Netherlands and East Africa.

Identify partner theaters and theatre artists in the United States and abroad
Carefully engineer and support encounters between artists
Nurture these encounters through a series of first and second steps
Foster long-term, multi-year encounters between partners
Tell stories and support journalistic coverage and exposure in artists' regions

PHILIP

MEET THE TEAM

OUR SUPPORTERS

ABOUT

PUBLICATIONS

Telling stories has always been the backbone of CITD's mission. To expand that purpose, we decided to create a direct line of information between our partners in Eastern and Central Europe and the United States.

As a result, we have created four online publications with different styles and perspectives. In 2016, the first edition of DISPATCHES came out, which contains commentary about Eastern and Central European festivals from an American viewpoint. American respondents share their experiences at the festivals; describing what they saw, the nuts and bolts behind each production, and their critical eye.

Next, we began Hungarian Letter of News in February of 2017. This bi-monthly missive sends theatre and cultural happenings from a rotating cast of Hungarian writers to US audiences. Additionally, the CITD office adds its voice about Hungarian projects occurring within the US.

In September 2017, Yury Urnov penned his first Russian Notebook. This publication takes a laser focus on one theatre-maker working in Russia, in a long-form interview that gets into the nitty-gritty of their position, institution, and opinions on the cultural sector in Russia. As of 2020, Russian Notebook reflects Yury’s perspective on the situation in Russia from his perch in the United States.

Our latest publication, REFLECTIONS: Hungary, launched in early 2022 and follows American Fulbright scholar, Julia Mann’s deep involvement in the Hungarian theatre scene at a critical time for the country's theatre and political ecology.