Canada's Stratford Shakespeare Festival is taking the lead in a project that would create a repertory theatre company in the impoverished El Salvador town of Suchitoto.
Organizers of the annual festival are announcing a special program, Sharing a Dream, this weekend, according to a report on Saturday by the Globe and Mail.
The campaign is supported by aid agencies and municipal governments. Its goal is to transform Suchitoto into a centre for theatre and the arts in Central America.
"The community there is in exactly the same situation that Stratford, Ont., was," Stratford Festival general director Antoni Cimolino told the Globe.
Suchitoto, located in the middle of the country, is a charming town of cobblestones and old colonial buildings. It also has a large theatre, which will need renovations.
Suchitoto synonymous with 'people being killed in the streets'The town was almost destroyed by El Salvador's civil war, which ended in the early 1990s.
Cimolino said Stratford was in pretty dire straits itself when the festival was launched in 1953. The town's main industries, producing steam engines and furniture, were on the decline and it was the festival that ultimately became Stratford's saviour.
"[Suchitoto] was ravaged during the civil war. The name became synonymous with people being killed in the streets. It had always been considered one of the most beautiful spots in El Salvador," noted Cimolino who said the non-profit Stratford Festival will be donating old equipment and providing expertise to the project.
Sharing a Dream, supported by the aid agency CUSO-VSO, will create a theatre program as well as a theatre arts school.
"The reason we're doing this is that it isn't a commercial thing. It's employment opportunities for youth and it has the potential to really transform the region," said the agency's resource development manager, Peter Jones.
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