It is often said that "variety is the spice of life," but in the multifarious world of theater it is more a staple than a special condiment. That said, "variety" is the keyword chosen by Satoshi Miyagi, artistic director of the Shizuoka Performing Arts Center (SPAC), to capture the upcoming and especially diverse 2014 World Theatre Festival Shizuoka under Mt. Fuji.

For Miyagi, 55, variety is an essential and core part of theater that is necessarily generated by the collaborative processes involved in its production and reception. And, as an interactive space, theater also invites all its participants to traverse geopolitical or cultural lines in their collective quest for distinctive modes of expression.

So now, especially with dystopia seeming to beckon from every news report in the form of sectarian and territorial conflicts around the world, the theater remains a valuable space in which to rethink the importance of mutual respect and some of the richness that can stem from variety.