THE NETHERLANDS / 2024

Hassan and Moses (NL) - Tomer Pawlicki

A Young Europe IV production by De Toneelmakerij, the Netherlands.

Hassan and Moses are best friends. At school, they have a ritual together. Every break, they go out for fries together at the cafeteria near school. Their gimmick is that Moses always brings his own jar of mayonnaise, because it’s cheaper, and Hassan gladly joins in. One day, they make a TikTok showing how much this saves them in the long run and how many extra fries they can buy for it. Their video is a hit, and they go viral. They keep making TikToks, and call themselves the Mayo Brothers.

Written by Tomer Pawlicki

Directed by Timothy de Gilde

Translation: Purni Morell

Dramaturgy & Mentor: Paulien Geerlings

Mentor: Mohammad Al Attar

Education: Martien Langman

Recommended for ages 12+

MALTA / 2024

Gutz (MT) - Kurt Gabriel Meli & Alex Weenink

A Young Europe IV production by Teatru Malta, Malta.

Jack has been sneaking into his old high school all year. Why? Because the canteen’s sausage rolls are the best, obviously. That’s not the only reason. In those classrooms, Jack fell in love with James...before a big argument split them apart.

In those classrooms, Ms Stefania was building him up...all while Ms Ciangura was tearing him down. Jack has been sneaking into his old high school all year. Why? Because he’s wondering why he never had the guts to say what he needed to say in those fucking classrooms.

GUTZ is a coming-of-age classroom play for post-secondary schools (16+) that explores young people’s relationships with power, shame and the act of standing up and speaking out against the louder voices in our lives.

Written by Kurt Gabriel Meli & Alex Weenink

Directed by Chantelle Micallef Grimaud

Dramaturgy: Ruth Borg

Mentor: Dounia Mahammad

Education: Karl Cassar

Recommended for ages 16+

SLOVENIA / 2024

Little Stars (SI) - Jaka Smerkolj Simoneti

A Young Europe IV production by Slovene National Theatre Nova Gorica, Slovenia.

During the main break, after an uninspired lecture from the school psychologist Mrs. Kavka, an incident occurs between two high school students. At first glance, the circumstances seem unclear. Oto, a brilliant athlete, is left with a fractured orbital rim. Miki, a model student is the obvious culprit. Through their conversations and the conversations with the school psychologist, the background of the dispute is slowly revealed, and it goes beyond the mere eruption of teenage violence.

The play doesn’t thematise the violence itself, but searches for its causes: the feeling of powerlessness, peer bullying, body image issues, sexual identity, societal pressure, and similar.

Somewhere beyond the classrooms, hallways and school walls, an intimate relationship develops between Miki and Oto, one they perhaps never expected.

Caught between the expectations of others and their own desires they try to hold onto this island of freedom, convinced it would not survive the collision with the world. In doing so, they encounter those who were supposed to help them navigate, but who cannot come up with a thing more helpful than the mantra “little stars, little stars, help me.”

Written by Jaka Smerkolj Simoneti

Directed by Živa Bizovičar

Translation: Barbara Skubic

Dramaturgy: Nik Žnideršič

Mentor: Dino Pešut

Music: Gašper Lovrec

Stage Design & Video: Dorian Šiško

Cast: Marjuta Slamič, Gašper Lovrec, Jakob Šfiligoj

Recommended for ages 15+

CYPRUS / 2024

FAT (CY) - by Zoe Apostolidou

A Young Europe IV production by THOC, Cyprus.

Frixos has been dealing with pressure in school and at home because of his weight, often hides behind screens to make friends, has to deal with his mom’s incessant comments and attempts to make him thin, and sometimes avoids going to places or doing things. He feels fine with himself, and his health is good, but this doesn’t seem to matter to others, who only see a fat person in him, with all the prejudices this entails (him being lazy, of bad health, disorganised etc.). What will this lead to?

Written by Zoe Apostolidou

Directed by Elena Sokratous

Dramaturgy: Marina Maleni & Kiki Argyrou

Mentors: Mohammad Al Attar

Recommended for ages 12-18

BELARUS / 2024

Lucky (BY/GB) - Olga Voronkova

A Young Europe IV production by Belarus Free Theatre/Young Vic, Belarus/United Kingdom.

Dasha and Mikita meet at a refugee centre in Poland. They share a complex and fear-filled experience of fleeing from the horrors of war in Ukraine. Dasha can’t find her grandma, who went looking for their cat that ran away from the centre. Mikita steps in to help, marking the beginning of a relationship that unfolds in London where they both try to settle. Can one truly start a new life after losing everything?

The play examines the emotional and psychological challenges faced by young refugees, underscoring the importance of support systems in the healing process and highlighting the pervasive loneliness that often accompanies it. Their together is not just about finding a new life in London, but also about grappling with deep- seated trauma. Together, they navigate this challenging process, highlighting the ups and downs of coping and the fragile hope for recovery.

Written by Olga Voronkova

Directed by Shauchuk Yuliya

Dramaturgy: Nikolai Khalezin (BFT) & Teunkie van der Sluijs (Young Vic)

Assistant Director: Raman Shytsko

Cast: Taisa Piatrova, Raman Shlykau

Mentor: Patty Kim Hamilton

Recommended for ages 16-18

SLOVAKIA / 2024

What's Up! (SK) - Tereza Trusinová

A Young Europe IV production by Slovak National Theatre - Drama Ensemble, Slovakia.

"What are you coming up with today?"

One classroom, a bus to school, a therapeutic clinic, and two teenagers. Šimon and Zoja. Classmates. Besties. Their lives. Interwoven and separate. They have known each other for a long time. But do they know each other well? Themselves and each other? It's hard to say. They are beginning to think that perhaps not. What happens next, and what to do about it? Every person experiences a certain identity crisis in their youth. Adolescence is a struggle, a feeling of helplessness and uncertainty about the future.

Such moments can be quick and harmless, but they can also result in deeper mental health problems. It's important not to be afraid to ask for help when needed. After all, no one is alone.

The author based her play on interviews with several professional capacities but also on a field survey among people aged 14-17.

Written by Tereza Trusinová

Directed by Robert Roth

Dramaturgy: Mário Drgoňa

Mentor: Dino Pešut

Set & Costume: Jana Němečková

Cast: Alexandra Lukáčová, Kristóf Melecsky

Recommended for ages 14+

GERMANY / 2024

Room Rumours (DE) - Matin Soofipour Omam

A Young Europe IV production by Badisches Staatstheater Karlsuhe, Germany.

In the beginning was the word. Which word? Who decides and who then speaks that word? In a classroom, the answer is usually simple: the teacher takes the floor, the class listens, speaks when being asked, and the curriculum determines the topics. In the process, many of the students' thoughts and questions remain unspoken.

With this interactive classroom play, Matin Soofipour Omam has invented a theatre game which sends two actors* and a class of students on a journey of discovery. They encounter stories that would otherwise have no place in a classroom, find common as well as their own languages, and thus create this play together.

Theatre-maker Matin Soofipour Omam has written an equally playful and poetic piece. She asks questions about power and responsibility, traces the effect of words and tells stories from her classroom. A play that was written especially for school classes and cannot be performed without them.

Written by Matin Soofipour Omam

Directed by Lydia Ziemke / suite42

Dramaturgy: Mona vom Dahl

Mentor: Dounia Mahammed

Costumes: Cennet Aydoğan

Theatre Pedagogy: Pascal Grupe

With: Pascal Grupe/Hadeer Hando, Laman Leane Israfilova

Recommended for ages 12+

GERMANY / 2024

(Surviving) The Substitute Lesson (DE) - Emel Aydoğdu

A Young Europe IV production by Staatstheater Braunschweig, Germany.

The substitute teacher introduces herself. Her own identity becomes the content of the lesson, due to a mysterious guest. What makes us who we are? How did we get that way? Young author Emel Aydoğdu writes for a teen audience. She writes about life from her perspective and explores the question of what language does to people, how people are shaped by society, and that sometimes the unsaid weighs heavier than the said.

Based on a personal story, something larger than one's own experience unfolds; written for a classroom, it takes place there as well. Here, different native languages meet, and in the foreground is a person who teaches, reports, portrays, and in the process discovers something for himself.

Written by Emel Aydoğdu

Directed by Nazlı Saremi

Dramaturgy: Josef Bäcker

Mentor: Patty Kim Hamilton

Stage & Costume Design: Shayenne Di Martino

With: Mariam Avaliani, Luca Füchtenkordt

Recommended for ages 12+

CROATIA / 2022

Tomislav Zajec – The Vanishing

This text excerpt was proposed by the Croatian National Theatre to the ETC Drama Committee in 2024.

Through several narrative lines that intertwine with each other in a non-linear arrangement of time, in The Vanishing we are gradually revealing the truth about the terrible crime that is committed against Marko, a six-year-old hearing-impaired boy.

In this play Tomislav Zajec does not console us and does not seduce us with sentiment, he does not moralise. With his dramatic score he invites both individuals and the wider social community to break the wall of silence.

PORTUGAL / 2022

Miguel Castro Caldas – The Frailty of Togetherness

This text excerpt proposed by São Luiz Teatro Municipal was selected by the ETC Drama Committee in 2024.

The Frailty of Togetherness stems from a desire to discuss – dialogically - the most pressing and complex challenges Europe and the world is facing today: the (re)rise of populism and authoritarian models. By participating in this current dialogue, this play proposes to look at key concepts such as democracy, liberalism, capitalism and marriage. What do they mean? Do they still matter today?

AUSTRIA / 2019

Svenja Viola Bungarten – Garland

The play was proposed by Schauspielhaus Graz / Austria for the ETC Drama Committee

It could be Mars. An area outside Madrid. The Mojave Desert. Or the Sahara. But let's not forget where we are. We are in Germany. In America near Penig, district of Central Saxony, to be precise. And the catastrophe is everywhere: the country is a blazing oven, the earth is withering, houses are burning down, there has been no wind for months. And there is no tornado far and wide to save the crisis-ridden characters from their fate.

But there is a girl named Dorothee Sturm, and she has set her mind on nothing less than saving the world. Too bad she seems to attract misfortune. Em and Henri can tell you a thing or two about that. They are not the parenting type, they are the farming type and lost first their dignity and then their farm in a fire. While the desperate policeman Gus Brandt sets out on the trail of the suspected arsonist, he in turn is sought by his brother, the filmmaker Salvatore Brandt. He is interviewed, overworked and underpaid, by Lorna Luft, host of the radio programme HOT TIMES. How a gigantic truck comes into the game and why Judy Garland, of all people, shines behind the counter of a petrol station - GARLAND also tells about that.

Download an overview of the play and the author below, including an extract in English and the full play in the original language.

AUSTRIA / 2022

Magdalena Schrefel – What ignites, what burns

The play is part of the Pipelines project, and was created in collaboration with Schauspielhaus Graz

In the subsoil of Europe, a branched circulatory system of crude oil is relaxing. Pipelines run through the continent like lifelines and fuel our hunger for energy. Despite all efforts, global oil production has increased continuously over the past fifty years. Nothing, it seems, can stop the catastrophic cycle.

"What ignites, what burns" is about two young women who try anyway. The Kleist Prize winner Magdalena Schrefel has taken on the Austrian part and designed a theatrical road movie along the Adria-Vienna pipeline. It shows the journey of its two heroines across Austria and the endless expanses of the Internet and describes their encounters with climate activists, various eccentric figures of the fossil age and their radicalization: How can narrative means blow up a pipeline?

The play premiered in Schauspielhaus Graz in January 2022, staged by German director Marie Bues.

SLOVENIA / 2023

Milan Ramšak Marković – A Rainy Day in Gurlitsch

This text excerpt proposed by Prešernovo Gledališče Kranj was selected by the ETC Drama Committee in 2024.

A Rainy Day in Gurlitsch is inspired by a wish to play with road-movie dramaturgy in theatre. Beginning as a benign dialogue play showing a dinner party in a charming middle-class home, we slowly turn to the central theme of the play: a fragmented trip through a traumatic feeling of loss that we recognise as common in today’s Western liberal culture.

ITALY / 2022

Melania G. Mazzucco – Dulan, the Bride

The play was proposed by Teatro Stabile de Torino / Italy for the ETC Drama Committee

Dulan, the bride could be described as a noir story. The play is about a troubled middle-aged couple, they are just married but they are somehow hounded by the ghost of a girl who was found dead in the pool of the building where they are going to live. Dialogue after dialogue, some disturbing questions emerge: who was that young woman? Did the man know her? Was it a suicide or an act of violence? In this spiral of questions and conjecture, the image of a young foreign woman stands out, a victim of oppression and male violence.

Download an overview of the play and the author below, including an extract in English and the full play in the original language.

SLOVAKIA / 2021

Tereza Trusinová – Right to Die

This text excerpt was proposed by the Slovak National Drama Theatre to the ETC Drama Committee in 2024.

Right to Die examines the right to voluntary death in three independent cases - a young Mongolian prostitute in Japan, a man who drunkenly killed his young child and, even after serving his prison sentence, decided to commit jingoistic suicide by slowly reducing his food intake (sallekhana), and finally, a lonely 83-year-old woman who decides to commit suicide by gas inhalation.