At Teatr Dramatyczny, the Austrian author Bernhard Studlar led a masterclass for theatre students from 14-24 October 2018. The theme of the workshops was The Confessions of the Courageous Mind.

Here we publish some reports from the students who partecipated at the masterclass.

Zuzanna Bojda

The workshops helped me to realize the mistakes that I was making in my texts since we were writing very intensely in a short period of time and I appreciated the comments of other people. The way everyone played with each other’s characters and narratives. Bernhard had a very individual approach to everyone and wasn’t afraid to critique us in front of the group. I have learned how important it is to pay attention to the appropriate title, character names and short descriptions of our work.
The workshops with Bernhard in the Dramatic Theatre of Warsaw were a great opportunity to meet amazing people interested in theatre. Our teacher from the very first day created a friendly environment so we were able to quickly bond with each other. Usually the first group reading is stressful but in this case everything went really smoothly and no one felt embarrassed in front of the group.
Bernhard proved that sometimes you need to start writing instead of keeping everything in your head. He told us how important it is to find your own technique to be able to overcome the barriers that would often block us from writing.

Blanka Zawada

Bernhard showed us interesting ways to start working on something new. He stretched the importance of working without pressure and how this approach can refresh the idea that might have accumulated in our heads. The one thing lacking from these workshops were exercises focused on dialogs; I would be interested in workshops that would include that.
The translation was overall good, although at times it lacked the specificity of the language and a lot of word plays were lost in the process. The people responsible for translation should have had a better understanding of the context of the texts to provide a better translation.
The group was really nice and the dinners were a nice touch from the organization team which I really appreciated. Bernhard made sure that the feedback we were giving to each other was always focused on the positives and I think it made the discussions go very smoothly and in a comfortable atmosphere for everyone involved.

Łukasz Stec

Bernhard gave us valuable tips on how to start writing when the ideas in our heads become more chaotic and full of information. I had the opportunity to try different conventions in my texts and immediately receive a feedback from the group. I would have appreciated writing together in a group in order to have a live reaction from other people on my techniques and ideas. The conversations I was able to have with Bernhard after the workshops were very valuable and gave me an interesting perspective on theatre in Germany and Austria.
In the future I would have liked for the workshops to last a little bit longer. That would gave us the time to look even more in depth on the texts we were writing and to focus on specific aspects rather than on our work as a whole.
I was pleased with the translation since most of us understand English and didn’t have high expectations. The level of translation was very satisfactory.