Honorary Members
An Honorary Member is someone who has served ASSITEJ International in an outstanding manner through participating in and contributing towards international activities and leadership over a long period, fulfilling the mission of the Association.
This honorary status is bestowed as a mark of respect and recognition, signifying the recipient’s exceptional contributions or achievements, and therefore, their significant impact or influence within theatre and performing arts for children and young people.
Our Honorary Memberships are listed below according to the year in which they were awarded.
Asaya was an EC member from 2011 to 2014 and the Vice President from 2014 to 2017. Born in 1934, he continues to be involved in Theatre for Young Audiences (TYA) at age of 87 years old and his dedication and commitment to theatre for children and young people are tremendous as a playwright and director.
Diana graduated from the Faculty of Dramatic Arts of the University of Belgrade, in the Acting Department. Along with theatre, TV, and film engagements as a professional actress, she was engaged in the founding of the first informal theater and art groups in Yugoslavia, in progressive research projects in the field of fine art theater as well as interdisciplinary works in performing, video art, and art actions with her husband, Milan Tepavac. In the 90’s due to time disintegration of the country she started exploring how art can help children in their growth and development, particularly in times of crises and suffering. As a theatre pedagogue and director she was particularly interested in work with teenagers, directed and developed several theatre plays using the process-based approach dealing with challenging teenage as well as social topics.
Etoundi is a passionate and dedicated Theatre for Young Audiences (TYA) practitioner, playwright, director, and producer.
Nina was part of the inaugural ‘Next Generation’ group at the 16th ASSITEJ World Congress in 2008 in Adelaide. When she stood for the Executive Committee of ASSITEJ in 2011, she was one of the younger candidates, but was elected to the committee with one of the highest votes. From the first, she stood out as a leader, and she worked incredibly hard on the promotions of the organisation, bringing her social media skills to the table, and supporting the development of new networks including Next Generation and IIAN.
Sookhee has been passionate about the development of Korean TYA for the last three decades. She is the founding and acting Artistic Director of the Jongno Children’s Theatre, which is the first Korean TYA theatre venue fully funded by a local government.
Tülin studied at the Theatre Department at Ankara University and did her PhD on Turkish Children’s Ritualistic Games and Drama in Education. She focused on anthropological approach in theatre and drama. She has been teaching at the same department 1988 – January 2017. She is a board member of ASSITEJ Turkey since 1990, an ASSITEJ Executive Board member from 2005 to 2011 and a founding board member of ITYARN since 2006. She wrote two books for teachers on creating performances by means of drama as a teaching tool, co-edited an ITYARN book in 2014 published in English and Turkish.
Vigdís was elected to the EC in 2011 and was Vice President from 2014-17.
Katariina has been active in ASSITEJ for almost three decades. She has been an influential and deeply committed board member and later chairperson of ASSITEJ Finland from 2000-2007.
Kim Peter is a poet, theatre educator, and the Artistic Director for the Kennedy Center Theater for Young Audiences, where he has worked since 1983 .
Marisa served three terms on the Executive Committee of ASSITEJ International and during that time she became a global leader of the association. Her dedicated work as Secretary General saw the secretariat move out of Europe for the very first time to be housed in Mexico.
Ai Choi is Professor for Theatre for Young Audiences (TYA) at Korea National University of Arts. She has worked as Director of TYA Research Center at the National Theatre Company of Korea (2011-2015). She served ASSITEJ International on the Executive Committee (2005-2011) and Vice President (2008-2011). She was one of the founding Members of ITYARN in 2006 and served on the ITYARN board until 2017. She has been instrumental in bringing her students to ITYARN and ASSITEJ events, and organised exchanges with other universities. Currently she is working as Education Director for TYA productions, especially for teenagers. Besides teaching and directing, she has presented papers, workshops and panel discussions in International Conferences in Italy, Austria, Japan, Hong Kong, Poland, and other countries, always representing ASSITEJ or ITYARN.
Ivica was engaged as an actor in the Youth Theatre of Zagreb from 1983-1989. He founded the Theatre Mala Scena with Vitomira Loncar where he was Artistic Director as well as Director and Actor.
María was first elected as ASSITEJ International EC member at the XV ASSITEJ World Congress in Montreal in 2005. She served as Vice President for two terms: 2008-2011 and 2011-2014.
Peter has worked in the field of professional performing arts for young audiences since 1977.
Stephan was elected to the ASSITEJ International EC at the XIV ASSITEJ World Congress in Seoul in 2002 as the Austrian representative, after having taken over the reins of ASSITEJ Austria. He was appointed as Counsellor to the EC from 2011-2014.
Tony worked as an actor with companies such as Sydney Theatre Company, Melbourne’s Playbox Theatre, State Theatre Company, Harvest Theatre, Patch Theatre Company, Stage Company, and Vitalstatistix.
Vicky trained at Central School as an actress and drama teacher, she worked in various Theatre-in-Education teams, starting at The Belgrade Theatre, Coventry. She has written plays for stage, TV and radio and created original children’s productions for the Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre.
Paul joined the pioneering Theatre in Education (TIE) team at Belgrade Theatre, Coventry in 1966 and since then has created and directed over 100 plays for young audiences. He founded and became Artistic Director of Merseyside Young People’s Theatre from 1978-1989, where he commissioned Willy Russell to write the musical Blood Brothers. From 1994-2008 he was Artistic Director of Cleveland Theatre Company (now Theatre Hullabaloo) in Darlington, Northeast England.
In 1969 she worked for the Soviet Women’s Committee at the Pan-Russian Theatrical Society and functioned as Secretary and Translator for the Soviet Center of ASSITEJ. She organised and coordinated the committee responsible for the VIII and XII ASSITEJ World Congresses in Moscow and Rostov-on-Don, respectively.
He was Professor at the Seoul Institute of the Arts and Artistic Director of the Dong Rang Repertory Company. In 1985 he founded the Dong Rang Theatre for Young Audiences, the first professional theatre company for youth in Korea.
In 1960 he founded the Théâtre des Jeunes Années in Lyon as its playwright and director. In 1968 he created the new Théâtre du Huitième with Marcel Maréchal.
From 1985-1987 he worked as Production Manager at the Wästswänska Teatern in Uddevalla and as Producer at the TURteatern from 1987-1999. He was instrumental in the establishment of Bibu.se -the Swedish National Performing Arts Biennial for Children and Youth.
She taught creative dramatics in public schools and universities since 1952. She is author of many publications on children’s theatre and, theatre and the handicapped, which have been translated into many languages.
She was a permanent member of the Cameri Theatre in Tel-Aviv since 1948. She was the founder and director of the National Theatre for Children and Youth from 1970 on, with the Cameri Theatre. She was appointed Lecturer to the Faculty of Drama at Tel-Aviv University in 1973. She attended the Constitutional Conference in Paris, 1965 and was member of the ASSITEJ International EC from 1970-1975.
She first worked with Léon Chancerel (1945-1965) and then with Louis Jouvet (1945-1951) at the resumption of the Society of the History of Theatre which had been interrupted during WWII. From 1948 she served as Engineer to the C.N.S.R. for Theatrical Sciences.
He was member of Banden, a theatre company for children, from 1976-1984. He served as head of Teatercentrum from 1987-1996, organiser of the large annual Danish Children’s Theatre Festival in April.
She was Director and Theatrical Educator at the Zagreb Theatre for Young People, where she staged more than a hundred performances for and with children and young people. She published a large number of writings on children’s dramatic creativity, in professional periodicals and publications in Croatia and abroad.
Founder of ASSITEJ Spain, and first president of the association. She starts her links with the theatre for children in 1942, through the “Femenine Section” in FET and JONS, the only entity that, in the 40s, was working in activities of this kind. In 1960, the Company Los Títeres (puppets), was created with her as Director. It was the first professional company working for children, from the end of the civil war.
She was Founder, Dancer, Choreographer, and Artistic Leader of the Scapino Ballet Amsterdam from 1945-1970. She founded the Jeugdtheater Amsterdam in 1971 and was founder and member of the board for the Individual Secondary and Art Education Schools of Amsterdam. She was Board Member of the Netherlands Councils and Committees on the Arts as well as ITI and the Netherlands Dance Council.
The son of Jewish parents was named Hans Rudolph Rosenberg, but adopted a number of pseudonyms during his political career. After school he completed his education at the acting school of Max Reinhardt’s Deutsches Theater in Berlin. He was a volunteer of the First World War, joined the labour movement and became a member of the communist party. Until his emigration he worked as actor and director. Between 1932 and 1948 he was employed in the culture business of the Soviet Union. Back in what was to become the German Democratic Republik (GDR) he became a well-connected member of the society. He assumed several influential positions in the cultural and political system of the GDR. In 1949 he founded the Theater der Freundschaft in Berlin and was the first artistic director of this important component of the socialist educational policy. Later his wife Ilse Rodenberg took over this theatre and established the theatre of the GDR as a role model of the theatre for children and young people worldwide. In 1978 Hans Rodenberg was honoured with the Honorary Membership of ASSITEJ.
Russian theatre director, public figure, outstanding practitioner, and theoretician of artistic and pedagogical theatre for children.
Chorpenning served as a playwright-in-residence for community theatres in Minnesota. Her article, “Putting on a Community Play” in the Quarterly Journal of Speech Education in 1919, led to her national prominence and requests for her services throughout the United States.
Established la Compagnie des Comédiens Routiers in 1929. Established a Center of Studies and Dramatic Presentations in 1933. He created le Théâtre de l’Oncle Sébastien in 1935, an artistic theatre for children. Artistic Director of Festival de Sarlat.
Author of children’s plays of high quality; died in 1946.
