The account here is in the spirit of the short pieces that periodically used to appear under the rubric ‘Reports and Announcements’ at the back of New Theatre Quarterly. Its purpose is to invite the journal’s readers from all over the world – and they are truly from across our whole planet – to be aware of the very existence of a major theatre event of socio-historical and artistic significance to our shared field of interest; and to give them some insight into the evolution of this event in its interface with political and social change, which, in the current times, have become increasingly brutal. The theatre field is vast, as vast and varied as the approaches and perspectives within it, the positions long held, shifting, or newly taken, and the stakes at play, differently for different people in different political, social, and cultural contexts. The Theatre Olympics, established in 1995, seek to pay tribute to, and activate interaction between, the multifarious humanity that makes theatre and is embodied in it.
