Treading the Boards in Pakistan

by Tobias Andersen

In the Spring of 1997, Allen Nause, Artistic Director of Artists Repertory Theatre of Portland, Oregon, received a telephone call from the United States Information Agency (USIA 1953 to 1999, a United States government agency devoted to the practice of public diplomacy), in Washington, D.C.
The call was about a festival that was to take place in the city of Lahore in Pakistan. Known as the Second International Theatre & Dance Festival, it was to be the major cultural event that would mark-in 1997-Fifty Years of Pakistan's Independence.
On November 10, 1997, Allen and I left for our destination, half-way around the world, to present the words and ideas of an early 20th century American lawyer, Clarence Darrow, a champion of democracy, in a one-man play, Darrow, to the people of Pakistan.
This is my record of that journey of treading the boards in Pakistan.