Causing disruptions in the action with language barriers. Getting tripped up by the absurdity of the act of speaking. Wanting to speak but not being able to speak. This is the motif at the root of most of my plays. They are everyday operas in which I mix collected speech fragments and particles of reality into a fictional sound.
Born in 1970 in Stuttgart, Felicia Zeller graduated from the Baden-Württembergischer Filmakademie in 1998. She writes dramatic texts and prose and has written and directed many films and other works in the field of new media.
The commissions and prizes she has received include the Baden-Württemberg Young Dramatists Prize for “immer einen hund gehabt/plane crazy (1928)” in 1993; “Club der Enttäuschten” (Stadttheater Konstanz), 2001; “Triumph der Provinz (Theaterhaus Jena), 2002; “Einfach nur Erfolg” (Theater Freiburg), 2005; “Kaspar Häuser Meer” (Theater Freiburg) and the 33rd Mülheim Dramatists Prize audience award for “Kaspar Häuser Meer”, 2008; Heidelberg’s Clemens Brentano Prize for Literature for “Einsam lehnen am Bekannten”, 2009; “Der große Blöff / Entfernte Kusinen” (Saarländisches Staatstheater), Business Club Prize for “Kaspar Häuser Meer“, 2010; nomination for the 36th Mülheim Dramatists Prize for “Gespräche mit Astronauten” (Nationaltheater Mannheim), 2011; nomination for the 38th Mülheim Dramatists Prize, Hermann Sudermann Prize, for “X-Freunde”, 2012; “Die Welt von hinten wie von vorne” (Nationaltheater Mannheim), 2013; “Wunsch und Wunder” (Saarländisches Staatstheater), nominated for the 40th Mülheim Dramatists Prize, 2015; “Zweite Allgemeine Verunsicherung” (Schauspiel Frankfurt), nominated for the 41st Mülheim Dramatists Prize, 2015, now available in the monologue version “Iwanow reloaded”
Plays:
Bier für Frauen
Club der Enttäuschten
DEUTCHES HYSTERISCHES MUSEUM
Einfach nur Erfolg
Einsam lehnen am Bekannten
Gespräche mit Astronauten
Der große Blöff / Entfernte Kusines
Ich Tasche
Ich, dein großer analoger Bruder, sein verfickter Kater und du
Im Café Tassl
Immer einen Hund gehabt/plane crazy (1928)
Kaspar Häuser Meer
Meine Mutter war einundsiebzig und die Spätzle waren im Feuer in Haft
Tot im SuperRiesenAquarium
Triumph der Provinz
Vom Heinrich Hödel und seiner nassen Hand
Die Welt von hinten wie von vorne
Wenn ich was anderes machen würde, würde ich vielleicht nicht immer ans Geld denken
Wunsch und Wunder
X-Freunde
Zweite allgemeine Verunsicherung / Iwanow reloaded
Audio plays:
Bier für Frauen
Einfach nur Erfolg
Gespräche mit Astronauten
Kaspar Häuser Meer
Kaspar Häuser Meer (author’s production)
Die Welt von hinten wie von vorne
Iwanow reloaded / Zweite allgemeine Verunsicherung
Iwanow reloaded (Ivanov reloaded)
Cast: variabel
Previously, galas like the Golden Woman Awards were just a welcome opportunity to look good. But those days are over. Criticism and self-criticism now start at the red carpet.
“Klumpenapokalypse” (Lump Apocalypse) is not only the title of the film debut by the director whose underwater film ÜBERLEBEN IM EIGENEN LEBEN (Surviving your own life) is set to receive a prize in the category Best Actor, it is also what the gala participants’ snowballing commentaries, observations and intrusions make up. Every remark becomes a statement, a reproof, an appeal. Every remark gives cause for criticism and self-criticism, guilt, insecurity, aggression, desperation. Depression all around.
Ich, dein großer analoger Bruder, sein verfickter Kater, und du (2016)
(Me, your big analogue brother, his fucking tom-cat and you)
Cast: 2F, 2M
The analogue brother has broken into the shared apartment through a faulty backdoor and won’t go away. He wants to know everything and record everything in writing. He gets a new tenancy agreement that provides for tenant controls. The surveillance and checks this puts in place lead to self-monitoring, suspicion and mutual control. Everyday conversations become interrogations.
Wunsch und Wunder (Desire and Miracle)
Dr Bernd Flause, head of the fertility practice “Desire Practice“ and luminary in the field of reproductive medicine, walks along the streets with a hanging head for some years. He is afraid to meet the sons of the donors from the time when he very often used his own fresh sperm. His colleague Betty Bauer, with her ticking biological clock, tries to get pregnant through a one-night stand, even if she has a good supply source available, while doctor’s assistant Nicole becomes a mother by accident again. Her substitute infiltrates in the practice with a false certificate, in search of her biological father. Her resemblance to Dr Flause in mimic and gesture strikes immediately all the people except the begetter himself. Laboratory manager Schimmerle palms his “world champion sperm” off on a patient who is exactly like him in every way, to finally provide his mother with the desired grandchild. With “Wunsch und Wunder” (Desire and Miracle) Felicia Zeller has written a cryptic comedy about creation phantasies which came true and about the glorification of parenthood.
X-Freunde (X-Friends)
Before all was better. Before you had a best friend, male or female or even both. You met up spontaneously for a beer, you spoke about everything and anything and you were happy. Today you have X friends, but the meeting is outdated and after-work is for wimps. Men and women are shareholders of themselves, idea managers, venture capitalists of their own life. The new credo isn’t to do something for oneself but to do something in itself. After generation X, golf, internship and casting, Felicia Zeller provides with her new play the generation concept of these days: “bite” generation. An artist, a businesswoman and an unemployed are in on it. Always on- never offline, always calling, email checking, tweeting and posting they shine, the Always-Accessible, through permanent absence. If you get lost in the network of networks just press restart. Work and leisure, self-exploitation and self-design are finally identical. With “X-friends” Felicia Zeller has created a tragicomic inventory of the workaholic society, in which the divine threat of expulsion from paradise “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread” is the last founder of meaning. And if you sometimes have to sleep this is a hibernation, maximum.
Kaspar Häuser Meer
Felicia Zeller has explored the daily routine of German youth welfare offices and has made three hopeless and overcharged social workers the heroines of her play.
“A stroke of genius of the author was to show neither the victims nor the perpetrators of violence, but their companions and attendants – namely the society and its climate. Felicia Zeller’s play “Kaspar Häuser Meer” is music language through and from our social reality. No social drama, no compassionate concern, but theatrical art.” (from the laudatio of the drama critic Hartmut Krug for the Audience Award at Mülheimer Stücke-Competition 2008).
Edition 2017-2020
Journal: Felicia Zeller about her experience in Rome
The German playwright Felicia Zeller was in Rome to attend the Mob Pro which took place from 12th to
Workshop about “X-Freunde” by Felicia Zeller
Werner Waas led a workshop about “X-Freunde” by Felicia Zeller. The Workshop set in Rome from 16th to
