On April 23rd in Rome French author Gerard Watkins will start the rehearsals of his Je ne me souviens plus tres bien, in collaboration with Italian coreographer and artist Silvia Rampelli. The show, a co-production of Teatro di Roma and Fabulamundi Playwriting Europe, will be on stage from 20-30 May at Teatro India. The project is part of a wider focus on Watkins which includes also his other text, Scenes of domestic violence, which will be presented by Teatro di Dioniso from May 28th to June 2nd.

Fabulamundi – Call for Associate Researcher

Fabulamundi Playwriting Europe is seeking a highly motivated individual to join our team as Associate Researcher for our academic research project ‘Fabulamundi Workbook: Mapping Contemporary Playwriting and Theatre Translation Practices in Europe’, led by Dr Margherita Laera, Senior Lecturer in Drama and Theatre at the University of Kent, Canterbury, UK.

This is a highly flexible part-time role which would suit a recently appointed Lecturer, post-doc, or PhD student based at any higher education institution in the EU, who could freely choose to spend their paid research time on this project. The position starts in June 2019 and ends in July 2020. The Associate Researcher will receive a small honorarium.

The Mousson d’hiver, the festival dedicated to theater for young people from high school and university, will take place in the Grand Est county between 25-29 March 2019.

Helena Tornero‘s text  F/M (Devil is alive and well), which was translated from Spanish last year thanks to Fabulamundi, will be presented for the first time in France. For the occasion, the author will lead a writing workshop with 25 high school students.

The Mousson d’hiver is also thrilled to welcome Davide Carnevali who will be conducting a translation residency in partnership with the University of Lorraine.

Last but not least, the texts of German authors Kevin Rittberger, Katja Brunner, Jakob Nolte and French author Nathalie Fillion have been selected to be part of a special composition named Examens, in partnership with the Goethe-Institut in Nancy. The project will be presented on the 14th of March during the Entretiens franco-allemands and then during the Mousson d’hiver.

On March 23-24 Interkulturelles Theaterzentrum Berlin will run a new edition of Dramatische Republik at  TAK Probebühne of  Theater im Aufbau Haus, with readings in German of two play by Gerard Watkins, who will be there for the occasion. During the first reading, the audience will be invited to read publically the text Der Turm (La tour) while for the second one, there will be a mise en espace of Identities directed by Paolo Costantini, young director hosted thanks to Erasmus Programme.

On March Gli Sposi by French author David Lescot directed by and with the Italian duo Frosini/Timpano will be touring all over Italy with several dates. On March 9 at Teatro Alice Zeppilli in Pieve di Cento, on March 15 at Teatro Popolare d’Arte in Lastra a Signa, on March 16 at Teatro Fulvio in Guglionesi. From 17-18 March Gli Sposi will be at Teatro del Loto in Ferrazzano, and from 21-23 March at Teatro della Tosse in Genova.

On March 8th at Teatrul Odeon the show Gardenia by Polish author Elzbieta Chowaniec will celebrate the Woman Day.

On February 28th there will be the stage presentation of You say tomato by Spanish author Joan Yago.

You Say Tomato
An hour before the doors open of the ruinous multi-purpose venue where they are performing tonight, Santi and Rosó will discover that they don’t like music. They don’t like working in music, they don’t like listening to it. They hate the idea of “being musicians” but they can’t leave it alone either. “Know what the worst thing is about the crisis of being in your forties? That it’s a repeat of the crisis of being in your thirties. You have the same doubts, the same fears… But you’re ten years older.”

On February 6th, Teatro delle Albe will organize Avventure per nuovi mondi, a focus dedicated to the contemporary dramaturgy at Teatro Rasi in Ravenna, with readings of three Fabulamundi texts: Against progress and Against democracy by Spanish playwright Esteve Soler; The Lulu Projekt by French Magali Mougel and Fighters in Aspic by German Claudius Lünstedt.

From 22-24 January at Sala Beckett there will be the stage presentation of Peppa Pig realizes she’s a swine by Italian playwright Davide Carnevali. The author will also lead a workshop for teenagers.

At Teatr Dramatyczny of Warsaw in January Smutek I Melancholia (Traurigkeit & Melancholie) by German author Bonn Park will still be running. The show will be on stage on 12-13 January, translated by Iwona Nowacka, with the direction of Piotr Waligorski, the set and costume design of Jak Kozikowski and with Zdzislaw Wardejn as George.

Das Wunder vom Wedding by German playwright Katharina Schlender will be on stage at TAK Kreuzberg / Probebühne from 7-9 December, from 14-16 and on 21 and 22 December.

directed by Rolf Kemnitzer
with Artur Albrecht, Ike Eickholz, Oksana Loidova, Jessica von Randow, Luise Schlender, Susanne Schultze-Jungheim, Klemens Schwabe, Erik Thews, Marianne Wagner, Harald Wissler u.a
music by Harald Wissler, Denitsa Stoyanova, Punkband Panika
costumes design by Viale Lucyna

In collaboration with Teatro di Roma, Silvia Rampelli will lead a workshop with elderly people, based on the text Akvabely by Czech author David Drabek.

AKVABELY / AQUABELLES
Alfréd Radok Award for the best original play of 2003.
A view of the contemporary generation of thirty-somethings. Three university friends conceive a secret hobby: they meet at a hidden reservoir and ”dance“ in the water.
Their furry legs are vibrating in the rhythm of music above the surface, and they experience the moment of harmony and coordination that these thirty-something adults do not experience on the ground. With party picnics after training, they just mask the cracks in their relationships.

After school their paths had diverged. Kajetán had taken the post of TV moderator and became a true celebrity. He oscillate between the models’ arms and the arms of his English teacher.
Petr stayed at the university as a lecturer and continued his stubborn struggle against consumerism. He pedantically watches his wife and son in front of the traps of civilization and exposes Kajetán to betrayal of ideals.

However, the two friends are caught off guard by Filip. He decides to stay in the reservoir forever, returning to an existence as a prehistoric water element. He feels like a beast, webs grow between his fingers. Gradually, he closes himself to the world until all is quiet.
Things take off – Petr leaves his wife, Kajetán, influenced by the loss of his friend, causes a brawl in the TV studio. Over a few seconds their certainty has crumbled to dust. In the final scene on the shore of the lake, Peter and Kajetán carry a wooden chest on their shoulders. The dark suits are open, stones fly away from their heels. They slip Philip into the waters of the lake. Peter saves insects from the surface, and Kajetán opens a “shop” with sticks, mud and leaves. At the end, two orphaned “aqua-belles” dance for their lost friend.

In spite of all its gags and humorous situations, the play is permeated with the nostalgia of a generation and in places even a frosty surreal quality. In the 2004/2005 season, the leading Czech stage director, Vladimir Morávek, staged the Aquabelles. The play won the 2003 Alfred Radok Award and later the Best Czech Play of the Year (2005).

On 28th November, the mise en voix of Qui croire by French author Guillaume Poix takes place at Théâtre Ouvert.

Mise en voix by Guillaume Poix
with Sophie Engel
sound creation by Guillaume Vesin
lights and set design by Sébastien Marc

Like it or not, religion innervates our daily life. It may be decided to disdain the stakes, whatever they are, in the name of the pride inspired by French secularism. We can also feel the deep dysfunctions it causes and the schizophrenia it calls us: we still live according to a ritualized calendar by Christian holidays – while demanding, for some, complete neutrality vis-à-vis religions. We are caught between intransigence and tradition, rigor and free will. We are rightly proud that our state is secular, but we are confusing the state and society. Can we really rid our lives of religion?
We have inherited the scriptures, we doubt their sacredness. We receive them with the same curiosity as a literary work; yet, these texts carry something powerfully prescriptive. What principles can guide behavior, be it atheist, anticlerical, or religious? What are the deep contradictions that inhabit us about this entity named God? How can our existence be, without our being fully aware of it, determined by values ​​internalized since childhood?
Representing religion in the theater inevitably leads to questions of faith and credulity. What leads us to believe, according to what criteria do we trust one or the other of the known truths? We are committed to building a theatrical protocol – in sound, play, light and writing – that plays absolutely the game of fiction without hiding anything from our will to believe: when we believe in fiction, there is there something in us that decides to believe?

On November 16 at Teatrul Odeon there will be the stage reading of Lullaby by Erika Z. Galli and Martina Ruggeri of Industria Indipendente, with the direction of Elena Morar.  The two Italian authors, who will attend the opening, will be also involved in leading workshops with drama students of the Theatre University in Bucharest.

From 14-22 November, Spanish playwright Guillem Clua will be hosted by University of Arts of Targu Mures for leading a playwriting workshop which will involve both Romanian and Hungarian postgraduate students. For this occasion, at Studio Theatre there will be presented of The Swallow, one of Clua’s most famous plays, with the direction of Oana Leahu. The author will attend the rehearsals as well as the opening, which will take place on November 18 – the first day of Studio International Festival, organized by the University of Arts.

On 13-14 October it’s time for Dramatische Republik, a new format, in collaboration with Theater im Aufbauhaus Kreuzberg. All over the two days, there will be presented 8 readings of Fabulamundi texts by Anne-Jelena Schulte, Elise Wilk, Kai Grehn, Kevin Rittberger, Roberto Scarpetti, Claudius Lunstedt, Werner Fritsch, Roman Sikora

In October there will start the rehearsal of Die hockenden by Miroslava Svolikova, directed by Rolf Kemnitzer and of Extremophile by Alexandra Badea with the direction of Irene Mattioli.

Theatre LETÍ in Prague has been working with a group of students in translation on a selection of three Fabulamundi Romanian texts: Antisocial by Bogdan Georgescu, Paper planes and Crocodile by Elise Wilk. The results of this work will be presented all over October involving directly the two authors.

The new season of Teatr Dramatyczny in Warsaw starts with the stage reading of The Calipsh Will Kiss Our Foreheads by the Austrian author Muhammet Ali Baş, with the direction of Aldona Figura.

The play tells in a highly comic manner of the efforts of two young men to enroll in jihad. Its principal aim is to expose the absurd reasons that motivate them to do so. Aside from all the usual, frequently discussed explanations, the play attempts to highlight the role of pop cultural elements and religious illiteracy in this. In the course of the play the two young men meet a plethora of quirky, bigoted characters who are in the jihad business primarily to further their own financial interests. This is often grotesquely funny but is also highly instructive. Not only for the figures taking part, but also for the audience. The play tries to make sense of the incomprehensible in a quirky and comic manner without making it appear cute.

On the 13th September, in the frame of Short Theatre Festival, will be presented the outcome of the residency of the Romanian author Bogdan Georgescu: HIC SUNT LEONESSE.

HIC SUNT LEONESSE – Ambra Angiolini, Raffaella Carrà, Amanda Lear, Iva Zanicchi, Heather Parisi – the legendary figures of the Italian television in the 90’s. Hic sunt Leonesse is an Active Art queer feminist performance. During the 90’s, in Romania, the most watched foreign TV channels were the Italian ones. Together with a group of Romanian women living in Italy, we’ll create a biographical retrospective on the imagined Italy, as it was delivered through TV shows by the feminine icons of that time and the realities discovered once their dreamed new life started in the peninsula. We will explore perspectives regarding women, macho-ism, queerness, work, depression etc. influenced by Italian television.

On the 12th September, in the frame of Short Theatre Festival, will be presented the outcome of the residency of the Romanian author Mihaela Michailov.

The emotional landscape of migration has, in the recent years, an impactful feminin face. The economics of affection center on new points of empathic departure and arrival. Who are the blurring ” “mothers of migration” and how they position themselves on the dominant political map of survival? Is their voice strong enough? How can we give them a space of visibility, challenging the critical conditions of work in a violent market of peripherical lives? What are the new maps of emotional work?

From 11th to 15th September, in the frame of Short Theatre Festival, the Italian company Vico Quarto Mazzini will presented a sound installation based on the text Paper Planes by the Romanian author Elise Wilk.

LEAVE THE KIDS ALONE

idea, design and realisation VicoQuartoMazzini
text in audio taken from Paper Planes by Elise Wilk
translated by Roberto Merlo
performing voices Michele Altamura, Simonetta Damato, Gabriele Paolocà
sound Alessandro De Rocco
photo Valerio Polici
registered at REH studio – MAT Terlizzi (Ba)

We live in a violent world and we learn this at an early age. To grow up, enter into the world of adults, means coming to terms with that violence and deciding which side of it you are on.  LEAVE THE KIDS ALONE is an immersive experience, an installation where visual and sonic elements come together out of an infantile and adolescent universe. A game room, recalling some childhood place, where an element of sound insinuates itself, a recording that tells the story of Miki, an adolescent bullied by his peers who, to get away from it all, decides to carry out an extreme gesture. The spectator hears this drama as if it were a fairy tale told to children, still living in a world of games, like a premonition, like an echo aimed at the deepest roots of one’s first encounter with violence. The narrated story comes from Paper Planes by Romanian author Elise Wilk, one of the texts chosen by Fabulamundi- Playwriting Europe for the support and promotion of contemporary dramaturgy in Europe.

LEAVE THE KIDS ALONE is one of the winning projects of the production announcement promoted by PAV, Short Theatre and Teatro i in the context of Fabulamundi Playwriting Europe.

In the frame of Short Theatre festival, on 6 and 7 September António e Cleópatra by the first Fabulamundi’s Portuguese twinned author, Tiago Rodrigues, will be on stage.

If we say one of the names, the other follows it. Our memory cannot evoke one without the other. Plutarch wrote that, from them on, love became the ability to see the world through the sensibility of someone else’s soul. They mixed love and politics and came up with a politics of love. They are a historical love story. They are a romance based on real events often romanticized about. Shakespeare built them a verbal monument that turned into the truest of truths what never happened to them. In Mankiewicz’s film that led 20th Century Fox to bankruptcy, Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor were the celluloid and real couple they never –and always– were.
In this show written and directed by Tiago Rodrigues, Sofia Dias and Vítor Roriz are the here -and- now duo of what they were there-and-then. They are and are not Antony and Cleopatra. They are Antony seeing the world through Cleopatra’s eyes. And vice-versa. Always vice-versa. Vice-versa as a rule of love. Vice-versa as a rule of theatre. This show is seeing the world vicariously, through the sensibility of the souls of Antony and Cleopatra.

On 27th August, in the frame of Mousson d’ètè, will be presented the stage presentation of the text “The Passage” by the Spanish author Josep Maria Miró.

The Passage (La traversée)
Text by Josep Maria Miró 
Translated by Laurent Gallardo
Directed by Laurent Vacher
With Éric Berger, Didier Manuel, Charlie Nelson and Julie Pilod

A young girl dies in the arms of Sister Cecília, who finds her among some brambles after being brutally assaulted. This event will set of all the nun’s alarms regarding the functioning of the humanitarian project in the settlement where she is working, in an area devastated by violence and the numerous needs for aid to children and refugees. The episode will be the starting point of an intense emotional journey in relation to her ethical principles and her faith.
The Passage is the journey that takes Sister Cecília from the point of humanitarian conflict to cross the frontier with the first world, the origin of aid and, possibly, the source of the problems.
This play received the Frederic Roda Prize in 2015.

On the 26th August, in the frame of Mousson d’ètè Festival, will be presented the stage presentation of the text “Sorry we didn’t die at the sea” by the Italian author Emanuele Aldrovandi.

Excusez-nous si nous ne sommes pas morts en mer
Text by Emanuele Aldrovandi
Translated by Federica Martucci and Olivier Favier
Directed by Ivica Buljan
With Alain Fromager, Charlie Nelson, Didier Manuel and Johanna Nizard

In a not-too-distant future, Europe has become a continent of emigrants. European citizens, in a quest to find better jobs and a better future, try to reach the “richer” countries, but they have to do so illegally because those countries have since closed their borders. Among many ways of migrating illegally, one of the most widely used is the shipping container: the illegal immigrants come on board and pay a thousand dollars on departure and a thousand dollars on arrival, without knowing where they’ll be offloaded. The characters in this dystopian story are four, and they have no names. They’re identified solely by their physical traits: Robust, Beauty, Tall are the three migrants and Soft is the owner of the container. The play is divided in four parts. The first one takes place at the harbour, before the journey, the second one inside the container, the third one in the middle of the sea after the shipwreck of the boat they were traveling on and the fourth is a dreamlike epilogue – or perhaps a hallucination: the arrival of whales. As Davide Carnevali writes in the preface to the Italian version published by CUE press, the play’s strength is that it doesn’t act as “a parasite to reality, exploiting the problem of immigration and its media coverage. On the contrary, it’s a play that wants to say something that the media doesn’t regarding this problem; to show an image of this reality that isn’t generally shown; to clearly illustrate its dynamics and its motives. This is how theater reaffirms its meaning, a profound one: that of reopening the dialogue with society, where the media often close it.”

On 25th August, in the frame of Mousson d’ètè, will be presented the text Die Mountainbiker, by the Austrian author Volker Schmidt.

Die Mountainbiker
Text by Volker Schmidt
Translated by Nicolas Gessner
Directed by Julia Vidit
With Éric Berger, Thomas Blanchard, Marie-Sohna Condé, Johanna Nizard, Louise Orry-Diquiéro, Alexiane Torrés and Souleymane Sylla

Where nature meets the city…
Anna, a successful  interior designer,  has everything one could wish to have:
a family, material prosperity, physical health. But when she realizes that she reached the edge her life seems to her like a prison.
Anna starts to do strange things to destroy her beautiful life methododically. Maybe because of the death of her son she has never overcome? When she starts an affaire with Thomas, the boyfriend of her daughter, the situation escalates. Catasthrophies happen within the idyll of her world, it’s a chainreaction between Anna and her sourrounding.
„Mountainbiker“ is a drama about todays „Burgoisie“.

On 24th August, in the frame of Mousson d’ètè, will be presented the stage presentation of the text “Nico – Sphinx of ice” by the German author Werner Fritsch.

NICO – SPHINX AUS EIS (NICO – SPHINX OF ICE)
Text by Werner Fritsch
Translated by Pascal Paul-Harang
Directed by Michel Didym
Director assistant Yves Storper
with Odja Llorca
music by Philippe Thibault and Vassia Zagar

Nico, singer with the Velvet Underground, 60s and 70s icon, and a key figure still for the punk and gothic movements. Andy Warhol called her his moon goddess, she called herself Fata Morgana. In this monologue, Werner Fritsch reflects on her life and work.

From 23-29 August La Mousson d’été festival will take place and many texts by Fabulamundi authors will be staged: La traversée by Catalan author Josep Maria Miró I Coromina, Excusez-nous si nous ne sommes pas morts en mer by Italian author Emanuele Aldrovandi, Les tout-terrain by Austrian author Volker Schmidt and Nico-Sphinx de glace by German author Werner Fritsch. There will be a five-day workshop with 15 trainees led by Italian playwright Davide Carnevali. Moreover, twinned UK author Ella Hickson will be present with her text L’autrice.

For more information visit the official website of the Festival www.meec.org

From 18-20 July there will be Mob Pro – Spain, 3 days of meeting and training to stimulate and raise awareness through open discussions on the role and position of playwrights in contemporary society. Fabulamundi artists involved will be Muhammet Ali Basf for Austria, Roman Sikora for the Czech Republic, French author Lancelot Hamelin,  German playwrights Jelena Schulte and  Katharina Schlender, Roberto Scarpetti for Italy, Polish authors Dana Lukasinska and Sandra Szwarc, Mihaela Michailov for Romania. For Spain will be involved local playwright Ferran Joanmiquel together with others Fabulamundi Spanish authors.