Dr. Art Babayants is a multilingual artist-scholar who lives and works in what is now called Canada. His training combines the Stanislavsky school of acting, Meyerhold’s Biomechanics and Indian kalaripaiattu. Art’s directing credits include musicals Share and Share Alike (2007), Seussical (2009), Gypsy (2011), Godspell (2014, 2021), Spring Awakening (2019), contemporary Canadian drama Couldn’t We Be (2008), The…Musician: An Etude (2012 and 2014), Wine&Halva (2020) and multilingual performance In Sundry Languages (2015-2019), collectively devised by Toronto Laboratory Theatre (published as a script by Playwrights Canada in 2019). He runs Quebec’s first Musical Theatre program (at Bishop’s University, Sherbrooke) in English and publishes on the issues of stage multilingualism, diasporic/immigrant theatre, queer dramaturgy, applied theatre and contemporary musical theatre. Art has also co-edited a scholarly volume Theatre and Learning (2015) and the special issue of Theatre Research in Canada/Les recherches théâtrales au Canada (Fall 2017) dedicated to multilingual theatre in Canada. With the support of La Troupe du jour (Saskatoon), he is completing work on his first multilingual play Bros/Les gars/Akhperner (2021).

I visited Istanbul on May 24 to attend the first showcase ever of contemporary Turkish theatre, organized by a group of active theatre scholars from Istanbul’s theatre community; namely, Handan Salta, Hasibe Kalkan, Nihal Kuyumcu, Semen Cehver, Zerrin Yanikkaya and Ragip Ertuğrul, among others. During my week-long stay in this megapolis, the largest city in Europe today, with close to 18 million people,I had the opportunity to attend a number of performances with different styles, aesthetics, thematics, concerns and desires.I also took part in long discussions with the organizers about their thoughts, difficulties and dreams of the Day After. What follows is the text of my conversation with Dr. Handan Salta, a scholar of English literature and dramaturgy, with a particular interest in the history of theatre, Turkish theatre, dramaturgy, text analysis, creative drama and mythology.

In May 2022 UK theatre writer Verity Healey was invited to attend TheatreIST, a new independent theatre showcase in İstanbul. TheatreIST was brainchild of the late Ragıp Ertuğrul—a well-known and much-loved and respected playwright, critic, and director who sadly passed away in July of 2022. As Ragıp’s illness also prevented him from continuing to organize TheatreIST, A group of theatre colleagues and academics including Handan Salta, Zerrin Yanıkkaya, Nihal Kuyumcu, Hasibe Kalkan, Senem Cevher and Gökay Genç (playwright and co-founder of Rest Tiyatro with Ragıp) hurriedly took over Ragıp’s responsibilities.

TheatreIST, Türkiye’s (the newly changed name of Turkey) independent theatre festival, has just had its first year in Istanbul (May 22). It was sponsored by the Tourism Promotion and Development Agency (TGA) and İstanbul Metropolitan Municipality. Ragıp Ertuğrul, a much-loved playwright, director, and critic was the inspiration behind its birth but had to take time away due to a sudden illness. Thus the rest of the organizing committee—Handan Salta, Zerrin Yanıkkaya, Nihal Kuyumcu, Hasibe Kalkan and Gökay Genç (who was also the co-founder of Rest Tiyatro with Ertuğrul)—took up the leadership mantel to develop a successful event that included: thirteen performances; talks; panels; invited academics; journalists; and a wide range of festival directors and curators, from Canada to Israel. Sadly, I learned that in July, Ertuğrul unexpectedly passed away, to the deep distress of the theatre community in Türkiye and across the globe. However, it’s not wrong to say that the festival’s inaugural success is and remains a testament to and a celebration of Ertuğrul’s innovative spirit and dedication to the progression of Türkiye’s independent theatre scene.