Austria

Wiener Wortstaetten (Vienna)

Wiener Wortstaetten is a unique, intercultural playwrights-theatre-project, launched in 2005 by Hans Escher and Bernhard Studlar, which encourages discussion and networking between Austrian and international authors. Centered around authors who (mostly) live in Vienna and whose native language is not German but who write in German, an international network has been created over the years to establish an intercultural exchange and a centre for contemporary European drama in Vienna. Wiener Wortstaetten is a research laboratory, mediating between playwrights and the theatre business.
The goal of the project is the long term promotion and support of theatre authors. A specific methodology is followed for the selection and promotion of playwrights and plays, that foresees a first phase of stage presentation and reflection about the proposed plays; a second phase of review of the selected plays and verification of how effective and playable the drafts are, together with a professional team consisting of a director, a dramaturg and actors; in the third phase, the authors’ plays are presented to the public as a rehearsed staged stage presentation or production, either in cooperation with other theatres or as in-house productions.