The traditional opening cues of the Carthage Theatre Days will resonate for a full week in the beautiful halls of the Cité de la Culture and other iconic venues across the city.
This annual event, faithful to its winter rendez-vous, promises to immerse us in theatre works from around the world and, this year in particular, to introduce us to the Colombian, Mexican, and Spanish stage. A true window onto new horizons and new forms of expression.
On the stage of the opera house, we will have the pleasure of watching the great Egyptian artist Yahia El Fakharani in the celebrated adaptation of Shakespeare’s King Lear.
Another major production featured at the JTC will be Holm by the renowned director Fadhel Jaibi.
And the celebration continues with competitions, seminars, tributes, and musical performances.
A beautifully crafted edition of the JTC, to the delight of all lovers of the theatrical arts.
Amina Srarfi
Minister of Cultural Affairs
Mounir Argui
Director of the 26th Edition of the Carthage Theatre Days
We gather once again
To launch the 26th edition of the Carthage Theatre Days.
We gather to carry high the banner of this year’s theme:
Theatre… Conscience and Change
Theatre… The Pulse of the Street
We gather to rediscover our greatest strength:
The strength to rise… to speak… to dream.
As Bertolt Brecht once said, theatre is not a mirror held up to reality, but a hammer with which to shape the world into what it should be… more just… more human… more luminous.
This stage—always larger than its walls, wider than its halls, deeper than its fleeting moments—welcomes today voices from Tunisia… the Arab world… Africa… and the entire globe.
Voices carrying within them the experiences, ideas, and questions of their creators.
They place them before you, for the theatre-maker—attentive, aware, and listening—does not turn away from injustice, oppression, or suffering.
In an era where the world needs more than ever an art that confronts isolation and fear, restoring trust in Beauty and Freedom…
Tonight, we rise together in solemn, majestic silence.
We think of Gaza—wounded yet resilient and steadfast.
Palestine is Conscience.
Through the very essence of the human question that theatre holds, we remember Palestine not through slogans, but through what art does best: awakening to the truth that light is resistance, that art is resistance, that raising our voices and speaking truth is an act of beauty.
Dear guests,
The 26th edition maintains its traditional sections and, for the first time, welcomes an international theatre forum entitled:
“The Theatre Artist, Their Time, and Their Work.”
A transparent space to listen to theatre-makers, to understand their connection with their surroundings, to gather their insights, and to engage in the questions that keep the creator alert and alive.
We have chosen for this edition a diverse program,
Bringing together the official competition, Tunisian, Arab, and African performances, as well as productions from world theatre.
This edition opens its doors to an exceptional space:
Theatre of Freedom – the theatre of detainees in penitentiary units and rehabilitation centres.
A human and pioneering theatrical experience that we pursue with determination, in collaboration with the General Committee of Prisons and Rehabilitation.
Dear guests,
Alongside performances for adults, children, teenagers, and amateur theatre, this edition hosts 7 practical workshops led by renowned specialists, as well as a symposium on theatrical research based on doctoral theses defended in Tunisian universities, with the aim of promoting scientific research in the field of theatre.
Dear guests,
This year, we honour creators who have eternally marked the stages of Tunisian, Arab, and African theatre.
This tribute is not merely a celebration of the past, but a renewed commitment affirming that theatre continues—and that its flame never extinguishes.
I would like to thank our partner institutions,
In particular:
The Tunis Opera House
The Tunisian National Theatre
The National Centre for Puppet Arts
The Arab Theatre Committee, for its support of intellectual activities and practical training sections.
Dear guests,
There is no theatre without an audience…
Theatre is the voice of the voiceless.
The stage has no meaning without the passion you breathe into it every night.
It is you who make theatre a form of awareness…
You who make it a force of change…
And you who make it, above all, a living heartbeat at the centre of the street.
Welcome to Carthage…
Welcome to Tunis, the city of theatre…
Welcome to a new edition
That believes art is still capable of saving…
Capable of inspiring…
Capable of lighting the path,
Despite the darkness.
Thank you for your presence.
I hereby declare the 26th edition of the Carthage Theatre Days.
