Reminder: June 30 Deadline for World Stage Design 2005

June 30 is the deadline to enter World Stage Design 2005—a major, new international exhibition of set, costume, lighting, and sound design—which will be presented in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, from 12-19 March 2005. To date, over 400 designers have requested information about WSD 2005, with over 250 designers officially entered. Designers are encouraged to take part in this exciting new event.

WSD 2005 is a joint project of the United States Institute for Theatre Technology (USITT), the Canadian Institute for Theatre Technology (CITT), and the International Organization of Scenographers, Technicians, and Architects of Theatre (OISTAT). This new international design exhibition will be mounted concurrently with the 2005 OISTAT World Congress and the 2005 USITT Conference & Stage Expo, also to be held in Toronto during March 2005. WSD 2005 will be mounted in the Canadian Hall at The Royal York, the USITT Conference headquarters hotel and site of the 2005 OISTAT World Congress.

WSD 2005 is open to all individual designers throughout the world. Each designer who submits an entry will have his or her work presented on computer and large-format video screens in the Digital Exhibition section of World Stage Design 2005. Following the 30 June 2004 entry deadline, an international jury will review all the entries and select a group of designers who will be invited to formally present their work in the physical WSD Gallery Exhibition. A second international jury will view the designers’ works presented in the Gallery Exhibition, and individual medals and cash prizes will be awarded.

In addition to the exhibition, WSD will produce both a print and a digital catalog that will provide a wonderful record of international theatrical design since the beginning of the new millennium. We anticipate having the work of a large group of set, costume, lighting, and sound designers from throughout the world represented in both the catalogs and the exhibition. And we hope that many of those designers will plan to join us for the WSD 2005 exhibition, the 2005 OISTAT World Congress, and the 2005 USITT Conference & Stage Expo in Toronto during March 2005.

WSD is intended to be a complementary—not a competitive—event with the venerable Prague Quadrennial. The PQ—which has been become the most important international exhibition and competition of theatrical design since it was first produced in 1967—features national installations of theatre design frequently organized around a theme; WSD will feature and focus on the individual designer presented in a gallery format. PQ includes a limited representation of designers; WSD will be open to every designer throughout the world who wishes to participate and have his/her work documented in the exhibition and the catalogs. WSD will have a booth at PQ'03 during June 2003 where entry information and forms will be distributed. And PQ will have a booth at WSD 2005 where the award-winners of PQ'03 will be celebrated and PQ'07 will be announced.

The organizers of WSD and PQ both agree that four years is a long time between celebrations of international stage design and that it would be wonderful for such exhibitions to occur in a variety of sites around the world in the interval between PQs. The hope is that WSD will not just be a one-time event in 2005, but rather will become a regular quadrennial event moving from nation to nation in the two-year interval between the Prague Quadrennials concurrently with the OISTAT World Congress. The form of the WSD may change somewhat each time from what we are planning in 2005, depending on where the exhibition and the World Congress occur, but we hope that a second WSD would occur somewhere in the world in 2009 and thereafter become a new international tradition for celebrating world stage design.

For further information on the World Stage Design 2005 exhibition visit the WSD website at www.WSD2005.com

For additional information, contact:
Email: [email protected]