John Elsom has been involved in international theatre festivals as an organizer, selector, and artistic consultant for more than four decades. As the President of the International Association of Theatre Critics from 1985 to 1992, he oversaw more than fifty international conferences and festivals spanning Eastern and Western Europe, Latin America, North Africa, the Middle East, the United States, Canada, and the Far East, many of them taking place during the critical years of the Cold War’s collapse.
He was a founding member, patron, and international consultant for the International Shakespeare Festival in Craiova, Romania, established in 1992, one of the most significant international theatre festivals to emerge from post-Communist Eastern Europe. From 1996 to 2001 he chaired the Selection Panel of the Cairo International Festival of Contemporary Theatre, and from 1999 to 2002 served on the board of the International Theatre Workshop Festival.
In 2007, he managed the visit of the Comedy Theatre of Bucharest to the Edinburgh Festival, bringing their critically acclaimed production of Gogol’s The Government Inspector to British audiences.