In the 5th international DRAMA | TIK | ER | INNEN | FESTIVAL Graz asks authors, theatre makers and other artists: What stories do we need on the way to TOMORROW and how do we get there? We are looking for theater evenings, texts and fictions that have the potential to be the future.
The Festival will take place at the same time as The Week of New European Drama.
For more information, see the Dramatiker*innen Festival website.
Alles ist. Hin?
Antoniuskirche
In German
THEATRE MEETS FILM – BEST OF STREAMING
In 2020, you went to the theatre by opening up your laptop, placed alone in front of a screen undisturbed by your neighbour's coughing but perhaps distracted by the noise of children playing. The view of the stage was not your own, it was mediated by cameras. We respond to this situation with a series of filmed performances, each of them reacting specifically to this new way of viewing theatre. Each screening is followed by a discussion that explores the interface of theatre and film.
“ALLES IST. HIN?” This project's initial point is the plague era figure of the beloved Augustin. A project of Theater Nestroyhof Hamakom with texts by Peter Ahorner, Gustav Ernst and Miroslava Svolikova and music by Karl Stirner, Alicia Edelweiss and Voodoo Jürgens.
Dates and times:
In Graz:
- Thursday 10 June, 17:00 - 18:00
Online:
- Thursday 10 June, 17:00 - 18:00
DramaWalks im Textgarten
Schörgelgasse 64
In German
From the very beginning the Dramatiker*innen Festival has provided a stage for new texts. It offers opportunities to get to know plays. This year, the festival mainly features plays that take part in the Retzhofer Dramapreis. For the first time the prize will be awarded in both categories: adult audience play and young audience play. Moreover, there will be a focus on texts by Dutch and Belgian authors. We open up a text garden in a closed down garden centre. You are invited to enter, to move about freely as in a museum and in this way encounter texts again and again: monologues, short plays, excerpts from plays.
There will be installations too: a voice that comes out of a well … you will come across a peace dove that fears its time is up ... hear the oil—black gold—murmuring ... try to find out whether the homeless man you come to face unexpectedly is telling the truth ... you will witness family stories and, and, and ...
Together with the young audience you will ask yourself: are fathers allowed to wear skirts, what happens when a girl falls in love with a girl, can death simply be locked away? Let the plays' richness astonish you.
Dates and times:
In Graz:
- Thursday 10 June, 17:00 - 20:00
- Friday 11 June, 17:00 - 20:00
Uncanny Valley
HAUS EINS
In English
Performance by Rimini Protokoll.
The expression “Uncanny Valley” describes the gap in acceptance of robots that occurs between a reasonable similarity to humans and approximate perfection. An animatronic double of writer Thomas Melle was created that performs in the place of the author, who is not physically present.
What happens when a human being is copied? Can the original get closer to himself through his electronic double? Does the robot become a performer whose facial expressions, gestures and speech might even arouse empathy – but empathy with whom? With Thomas Melle himself or with the robot instead?
Dates and Times:
In Graz:
- Thursday 10 June, 18:00 - 19:00
- Thursday 10 June, 20:30 - 21:30
Wenn der Wald von der Stadt erzählt
Meranpark
In German
Written by Natascha Gangl, Johannes Hoffmann, Christiane Kalss, Anna Morawetz, Claudia Tondl
Directed by Sandra Schüddekopf
What stirs people in this city? What are their sorrows? How can they be helped? Five writers have researched and approached stories about sorrow, change and healing. The forest the forest reminds us reminds us of Hänsel and Gretel and thus of violence inside families, of loneliness, of absurd encounters ... but also of fairy godmothers.
The forest frightens and at the same time is a place of transformation and magic. Immerse yourself into the forest with us. Follow the whispers and voices, and listen to the people you encounter. Immerse yourself into the forest with us.
Dates and times:
In Graz:
- Thursday 10 June, 18:30 – 20:00
Krasnojarsk
HAUS DREI
In English or German
Written by Johan Harstad
Directed by Tom Feichtinger
After a catastrophe has destroyed nearly the entire surface of the earth, a lone anthropologist wanders the remaining area. His mission is to look for signs of life. After years of searching, he comes across a young woman one day. She is carrying an object of inestimable value: a suitcase full of handwritten reports, the final testimonies of a lost world.
This production has been specifically developed in the form of a 360° film. It can be viewed on VR goggles and draws its spectators straight into the author’s dystopian world.
Dates and times:
In Graz:
Thursday 10 June, 18:00 - 19:00
Thursday 10 June, 20:00 - 21:00
Friday 11 June, 14:00 - 15:00
Friday 11 June, 16:00 - 17:00
Niemand wartet auf dich
HAUS ZWEI
In German (with English surtitles)
Written by Lot Vekemans
Directed by Jochen Strauch
Depending on your point of view, it could be a good or a bad thing if no one is waiting for you. This is what the three very different women realise who have their say in short monologues – all of them played by the same performer. There is an old lady who volunteers to pick up waste left behind by others, a leading politician on the day of her very worst electoral defeat and an actor who is rendered helpless and sleepless by the state of the world and who asks herself what theatre can do to help make things better.
The play encourages us to assume our rights as political subjects and citizens and to act. An audience discussion moderated by the actor and involving politicians and activists is an essential part of the performance.
Dates and times:
In Graz:
- Thursday 10 June, 19:00 - 20:40
Online:
- Thursday 10 June, 19:00 - 20:40
Rand
Next Liberty
In German
Written by Miroslava Svolikova
Directed by Tomas Schweigen
Notions and conceptions of the fringe are of deep-seated tradition. Miroslava Svolikova develops these further combining archetypal, mythological references with pop phenomena like action movies and iconic characters like Mickey Mouse or the last unicorn. Also Tetris tiles appear to muse on their fate. Virtuosically, Svolikova connects narrative topoi and fragments of fiction.
“Fringe” outlines a ludicrous and grim world with bulging fringes which an ever astonished Middle keeps oozing out of. Characters are astray like outcasts from the centre of a polarised world, of tense and twitchy times. Horror and hope find a home here.
Dates and times
In Graz:
- Thursday 10 June, 20:00 – 21:45
- Friday 11 June, 19:00 - 20:45
DramaWalks zu Erzählstühlen
Next Liberty und TaO!
In German
From the very beginning the Dramatiker*innen Festival has provided a stage for new texts. It offers opportunities to get to know plays. This year, the festival mainly features plays that take part in the Retzhofer Dramapreis. For the first time the prize will be awarded in both categories: adult audience play and young audience play. Moreover, there will be a focus on texts by Dutch and Belgian authors. We open up a text garden in a closed down garden centre. You are invited to enter, to move about freely as in a museum and in this way encounter texts again and again: monologues, short plays, excerpts from plays.
There will be installations too: a voice that comes out of a well … you will come across a peace dove that fears its time is up ... hear the oil—black gold—murmuring ... try to find out whether the homeless man you come to face unexpectedly is telling the truth ... you will witness family stories and, and, and ...
Together with the young audience you will ask yourself: are fathers allowed to wear skirts, what happens when a girl falls in love with a girl, can death simply be locked away? Let the plays' richness astonish you.
Dates and times
In Graz:
- Friday 11 June, 14:00-17:00
Flüstern in stehenden Zügen
HAUS ZWEI
In German (with English surtitles)
Written by Clemens J. Setz
Directed by Anja Michaela Wohlfahrt
C is alone, not only physically but emotionally, too. Apparently, his only way of making contact with the outside world is via the phone. But whom should you call when you have no one? Well, what could be more uplifting than a phone conversation with a dubious customer service hotline? Or how about finally getting back at the senders of all those annoying spam mails and calling them all around the world?
Clemens J. Setz is a master of oddities, of mysterious magical realism. In this play, he explores a peculiar facet of globalisation – the concept of scamming via e-mail and telephone – and creates an equally mournful and humorous portrait of a person living in isolation.
Dates and times
In Graz:
- Friday 11 June, 18:00 - 19:25
Online:
- Friday 11 June, 18:00 - 19:25
Eichmann Project – Terminal 1
Antoniuskirche
In English
“THE EICHMANN PROJECT” by Liat Fassberg revisits one of the seminal events in the history of Israel – the Eichmann trial. The upheavals of the current time of systematic collapse, reminding us of Hannah Arendt’s warning about the dangers of obedience without criticism or thought, are examined.
Dates and times:
In Graz:
- Friday 11 June, 20:00 - 22:00
Online:
- Friday 11 June, 20:00 - 22:00
Legends of Entertainment
HAUS EINS
In German
A colourful evening featuring three very dissimilar superstars, united by their love of refined entertainment. Denice Bourbon, the rising, gay star on the stand-up firmament, Christiane Rösinger, legendary Berlin songwriter and galaist and Stefanie Sargnagel, iconic poet from Vienna’s outskirts, together on one stage for the first time.
Each one is a star in her own right. Together, they’re a force of nature.
Dates and times
In Graz:
- Friday 11 June, 19:30 - 21:30
Komt op / Gaat af
Theater am Lend
In Dutch with English surtitles
Written by Nico Boon
Performance by Vincent Company
In 2002 Nico Boon found an album of photographs at a jumble sale. A woman covers her murdered children. A North Korean soldier holds the hacked-off head of an enemy soldier high in the air.
These unforgettable pictures were taken by war photographer Margaret Bourke-White and in “Comes On / Goes Off”, along with the photographer’s life story, they are at the centre of a collage in which parallel lives come together and find a place for themselves, from Che Guevara to the author himself. All stories tell us something about mortality, human lives and the beginning or ending of stories.
Dates and times
In Graz:
- Friday 11 June, 20.30 – 22.00
Zitronen Zitronen Zitronen
In German with English subtitles
Written by Sam Steiner
Directed by Anne Mulleners
In his award-winning play, the British author outlines an undemocratic experimental arrangement: In a near future, a law is introduced that limits communication to 140 words per day and person. “Zitronen Zitronen Zitronen” tells the love story between Bernadette and Olivia and allows the author to explore the personal and political consequences of an infringement of the basic right to free speech.
How do the two characters adjust to their daily quota of words? Does a reduced number of words mean having less in common or less to argue about? Will they lose each other or start to really get to know one another?
Dates and times:
Online:
- Friday 11 June, 16:00 - 17:15