With considerable umph and assistance from Joshua Perlstein, who is an Associate Professor of Theater at Central Connecticut State University, in January of 2004 Project Troubador will continue its decade long initiative to address HIV/AIDS awareness theatrically, this time in rural and urban areas surrounding the city of Dilla in southern Ethiopia. Under Josh’s direction, African actors and several CCSU drama students will collaborate on a program that will draw on what has worked for us in the past while morphing that approach to the particular conditions and challenges that Ethiopia presents. We are very excited to be working in cooperation with the George Muirhead Center for International Education at CCSU, which assists students seeking to broaden their educational experience outside the United States. In addition to Josh’s outstanding leadership and dramatic credentials, playwright and veteran Troubador Anna Dolan, who is presently beginning a 9 month appointment at Dibub University in Dilla, will have an active role in pre-arrival logistics and post departure workshops in the surrounding area.

In January, Josh and the CCSU students will meet up with, design a script with, and act alongside student teachers from the Dilla College of Health & Teachers Training Institute. Performance sites will include traditional Troubador venues such as town squares and shoolyards. Resources for the plot line will include current information regarding HIV/AIDS awareness provided by local health officials. The piece itself will be driven by movement rather than dialogue, blending music, mime and acrobatics into a dramatization that will be both entertaining and thought provoking. Frank discussions will follow each performance, and after the Troubadors leave Ethiopia these teachers-in-training will continue the performances and discussions at their colleges, universities, and community centers around Addis Ababa, Dire DOA and Harare. Anna will remain behind in Ethiopia for six months and as such, she will lead additional workshops and oversee the continuing work of our African counterparts.

Ethiopia is one of the poorest countries in East Africa, with a very high rate of HIV/AIDS infection- exacerbated by decades of unrest and recurring
famine. Health officials are already concerned about what they perceive as a all the components of an even harsher famine approaching. The situation is dire and we are energized by the opportunity to infuse the overmatched health force with hope and a fresh methodology to combat the deadly advance of the HIV pandemic.