The Welt-Kindertheater-Fest (World Festival of Children's Theatre) is the first international theater festival for children by children. The first festival took place in Lingen (Ems), Germany in 1990. Since then, it has been staged on a bi-annual basis, the location alternating between its "home town" Lingen, and various cities around the world.
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History
The very first Welt-Festival Der Kindertheater was actually done in Hamburg, Germany in 1975, directed and produced By Hamburg's Ewe Deeken and Eberhard Mobious. There were 18 countries attending, of which were Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark, Poland, Russia, Iran, Turkey, Scotland, England, Yugoslavia, Israel, France, Japan and 5 companies this writer can not recall. Japan won first place, Scotland second place in awards. Theatre Workshop Edinburgh represented Scotland. Neil Cameron was the director and the company was John Bolton, John Melville, John Sampson, Robert Handleigh Nobele, Ken Wolverton who acted as well as designing the set. Linda Chase Broda created the costumes.
In 1981, Norbert Radermacher, created the first programme for children's theater at the theatre education centre TPZ Lingen. Two years later, the TPZ organized a small local event called Kinder spielen und tanzen für Kinder (Children play and dance for children).
A few years later, Radermacher – by then the director of the TPZ – developed the idea of creating an international theater festival for children, similar to the World Theatre Festival for adults. The first Welt-Kindertheater-Fest was developed and staged in Lingen in 1990, with cooperation from the "International Amateur Theatre Association" (IATA / AITA), the Children and Youth Theatre Centre of the Federal Republic of Germany, and the International Children Theatre Corporation (ICTC).
Since then, the festival has been held every two years, its location alternating between Lingen and various cities around the world. The only exception was the year 2012: the festival was supposed to take place in Sydney, Australia, but it was cancelled by the organizers.