The Festival aims to bridge the geopolitical gaps between schools within the UWC movement through the shared experience of theatre. For this purpose, schools across the UWC network were invited to submit scripts around the theme of "unity" to be performed by students at UWC Dilijan. 

The experience provided the first year students with material for their debut official performance in front of the whole UWC Dilijan community - a novel experience for students like Arine from Armenia (UWC Dilijan, 2019-2021): “I can’t explain my feelings on stage. All I can say is that I felt alive; I felt free to play however I wanted to. I imagined that there was no audience watching me, which gave me a sense of calm and confidence. And  I am so happy about the feedback that we got from the other students at UWC Dilijan”. 

Beyond the performance opportunities that the Festival opened up, the students also reflected on how the Festival, and theatre more generally, has the potential to create a sense of unity. As Nora from Spain and Canada (UWC Dilijan, 2019-2021) says:“UWC is a movement where we really aren’t just isolated schools, although sometimes it may feel like that, we are part of something much bigger and I feel like creating projects like this allows us to connect to that bigger whole.”

This is precisely the ultimate aim that led Jason Lasky, teacher of Theatre and English at UWC Dilijan, to embark on creating this festival: ”My hope is that this Festival will travel to every UWC that exists now and will exist in the future. My vision is for theatre to be the unifying artistic expression of the UWC movement.”

If you would like to take part in next year’s UWC 10-minute International Play Festival by submitting a script or by hosting the performance at your UWC school, please get in touch with j.lasky@uwcdilijan.am, so that a new generation of UWC students can carry the Festival forward.

Below, you can watch the five performances themselves and the full interview where students reflect on their experiences of participating in the festival and send messages to their playwrights at other UWC schools: 

A special thank you goes to UWC Dilijan students Edgar Martirosyan for editing the above videos and Paloma Frojan Fernandez for the festival poster art.