Today ASSITEJ Lithuania celebrates the 21st birthday

ASSITEJ Lithuania started the new year 2022 and the 21st year of its activity with meetings with the ASSITEJ National Center of Ukraine. President of ASSITEJ Lithuania Violeta Podolskaitė, Chair of the Board Birutė Banevičiūtė and member of the Board Saule Degutyte with representatives of Ukraine Iryna Zapolska and Nadya Matsuk discussed the current situation of children’s theater in Lithuania and Ukraine, possible directions of cooperation and planned joint projects. The visit of the Ukrainian colleagues continued at the Puppet Theater in Vilnius, where we watched the premiere of “Lizdas”, visited the Puppet Museum, and inspected the premises of the main hall under renovation. Vilmantas Jusken introduced Iryna Zapolska and Nadya Matsuk to the history and future plans of the puppet theater, and we discussed the impressions of the performance with Raimondas Klezys, a member of the Board of ASSITEJ Lithuania and the premiere actor. Birutė Banevičiūtė, Chairwoman of the Board, who participated in the meeting, is convinced that the live meetings are successfully paving the way for further cooperation between ASSITEJ Lithuania and ASSITEJ Ukraine.

This year, ASSITEJ Lithuania has planned a rich program of activities, including a national conference and an educational project “Theater Traveling with Children”, as well as seminars for teachers, ASSITEJ Lithuania showcase and other events that will give Lithuanian children and youth the opportunity to see performances and participate in artistic and creative activities.

Congratulating on birthday the president of ASSITEJ Lithuania Violeta Podolskaitė wishes that we have health and strength for the next decade of our activity, with new energy and new ideas to connect and fulfill our mission – to return our young audience to the theater as after the pandemic children and young people need to recover spiritually. “I strongly believe that theater is the space where you can recover spiritually, get inspiration and emotional refreshment,” the head of ASSITEJ Lithuania named the meaning of theater for children and youth.