World Stage Design

The international festival of design for performance, held every four years, is coming to the UAE for its 2025 edition. It features exhibitions, performances, workshops, talks and panels where professionals share ideas and mingle with the consumers; read our preview piece, including an interview with the organiser, here.

International Design Exhibition and Competition

This platforms individual designers from across the globe, showing work that they have created in the previous four years (no hypothetical designs are allowed). Applications to WSD25 closed in November last year with just over a thousand submissions; an international jury of 16 members has shortlisted the top 100 to show in the exhibition and compete for the awards.

Theatre Architecture Competition

The TAC explores new ideas about theatre architecture and interdisciplinary cooperation. Architects and theatre makers submit their proposals for a performance space in a given location – which this time will be the courtyard at Bait Obaid al Shamsi. Collaborations between architects and other theatre practitioners such as directors, technicians, performers or musicians (and/or students in those fields) are encouraged.

Technical Invention Prize

The TIP competition invites theatre technicians worldwide to share simple and smart solutions in everyday stage practice – innovative gadgets, devices, or any other effective solutions (often crafted using affordable materials and available resources). While some inventions may be used only in a specific theatre, company, touring production, or even within a single country, the TIP provides a platform to share them with the international community. All competition entries are published in a catalogue as a reference for industry professionals and educators.

Scenofest

This is the festival component of WSD, celebrating scenography with around 60 talks, masterclasses, panel discussions, themed mini-exhibitions, and immersive installations and performances (from New Zealand, Hungary, the UAE, Indonesia, UK, Nigeria, “and many more”) in a very full programme running 10am to 10pm each day.

Also part of Scenofest is a one-day Research Symposium celebrating “global perspectives, insights and approaches to research in theatre and performance design, architecture, and technology”. The full programme is here.

Sound Kitchen

A biennial opportunity for sound designers and composers to publicly present or perform their work in a listening-friendly space. Presentations may be compositions (or extracts from longer compositions), sound art, sounds from an installation, or sound scores from theatre or live entertainment; pieces are typically 10-20 minutes with an opportunity to discuss the work afterwards. There’s more information here.

WSD25 is being organised by Sharjah Performing Arts Academy under the theme Tomorrow’s Heritage. The main venue is SPAA; TAC and some Scenofest events will be at Sharjah Arts Foundation’s Bait Obaid Al Shamsi; and the TIP will be at Sharjah Research Technology and Innovation Park.

Day passes are AED 50 and an eight-day pass is a bargain AED 250; both include all performances, workshops, talks, exhibitions, and Scenofest.