I'm walking along the Berlin Wall. Or what is left of the Berlin Wall. Now you may ask: what has this got to do with theater, and globalization? Well in fact, a lot. Because, the Berlin Wall represents perhaps, more than any other edifice the division of the world into two conflictual spheres. The Berlin Wall became the symbol of the Cold War. We think of border controls, armed guards and restricted mobility, the division of the world into two antagonistic spheres. Now, while this is true, the Cold War period, roughly the 1950s to the 1960s, saw at the same time, a huge expansion of theatrical mobility, much of it state sponsored, and it was not based on commercial imperatives. In many ways the theatrical version of the Cold War was very open, as the main protagonists did battle on the cultural front by sending out ballet companies, jazz combos, and avant-garde theater troupes to demonstrate the superiority of their respective systems. Millions of dollars, and rubles, were spent on this form of conflict. For this reason, one speaks of the "Cultural Cold War". And theater played a crucial role in this area of combat. This theater of war was not just played out between eastern and western Europe, but also had numerous smaller arenas, particularly in the newly decolonized countries, some of which became so-called proxy states of the super powers. Others struggled to retain non-aligned status. The latter, the non-aligned states, often profited from both sides. We're going to look at the following areas: Stanislavski goes global; acting methods between Cold War tours; Porgy and Bess to the Soviet Union; theater and decolonization, as well as public funding and theatrical public goods.
