Introduction

Few months ago I was asked to agree to an Arabic translation of my essay on Theatre and digital multimedia (Marsilio, 2003). The request came from the 19th Cairo International Festival for Experimental Theatre that translates a foreign essay for each edition of the Festival. I was honoured, and immediately started to update the essay, sending the chapters to the translator. After the first chapter was sent, I received an email enquiring if I was interested in organizing a round table during the Festival, and to discuss the topics of my essay. The idea of confronting the scholars and practitioners from the Arab world and other countries was very challenging, and I went ahead without delay.

That is why on the 5th of September I held a conference session on Drama, Performance and Digital Multimedia, followed the next day by a workshop on the same topics.
I have to thank Prof. Fawzy Fahmy for inviting me to organize the round table, and overall Josephine Anstey, Christina Finger, Vincenzo Lombardo, and Emanuele Quinz, for their essential contribution. Here the reader will find all the talks.

The round table has had a great attention both form scholars and media. It has been very intriguing to understand how the experimental theatre is a sort of international language, a kind of open source code shared by intellectuals and artists coming from all over the worlds and from all different cultures.
The fascination - together with the fear - for the use of digital language in performing arts has been the common ground on which the discussion as developed. Besides the different point of view or the single aspirations, it has to be underlined that the Ministry of Culture has shown an interest in discussing the topic.
We are still waiting for the blooming of such interdisciplinary discussion in Italian academia and theatre institutions.

Antonio Pizzo