Iranian Twitterers Inspire New Drama???

In a late change to its schedule, the Royal Court is hosting a scratch performance of From the Tweets of Tehran in the Jerwood Theatre Upstairs tomorrow evening (1 July 2009), as part of its Rough Cuts programme.

Created by Royal Court associate director Ramin Gray and running as part of the Article 19 series of performances, From the Tweets of Tehran centres on the way that many Iranians used the social networking service Twitter in the wake of last month’s hotly disputed election results.

Twitter.com is a free micro-blogging service that allows users to post ‘tweets’ of up to 140 characters in length, which can be read by anyone. Many Iranian protesters used it to draw global attention to their cause after the Iranian government blocked many other modes of communication in the wake of the controversial re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

For the Article 19 series, the Court asked four contemporary playwrights to write a ten minute play in response to Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.”

Other writers who will have their work showcased as part of the series include April de Angelis (2 July), Anthony Neilson (3 July) and Juan Mayorga (4 July). For more info visit www.royalcourttheatre.com