The first edition of Europe Theatre Prize was awarded to French director Ariane Mnouchkine.

When she was presented the Prize she gave the following address:
“On behalf of the company of the Théâtre du Soleil I thank the judges, the organizers of Taormina Arte and the European Community. We are happy and proud to receive the Europe Theatre Prize and feel it very important that through this symbolic - and financial - gesture, the European Community is showing that it does not only want to be the Community of Tomatoes or of Pork, but also the Community of Art. But the Europe of the Community is not all of Europe.  

This evening our thoughts go to the other Europe, the Europe we call 'Eastern', as if to make it further away. My thoughts go to all those unauthorized artists who work in the churches in Poland, in the cellars in Hungary, in the garages of Czechoslovakia, almost everywhere perhaps a little shadily.
Without aid and in the greatest of difficulties they hold high the flame of theatre, of poetry and of truth in their countries. My thoughts go to those who often clamber up the wall to cast a glance at us who despite all our crisis, are still so rich and so free. I would like them to know this evening that we are thinking of them, and that this Prize, which I am receiving tonight, is also theirs, that we are waiting for the Old World to become Young again.

Thank you” .

7^th August 1987