Playwright: Alexandra Koch
Partner: Wiener Worstatten
Twinned playwright: Stefan Wipplinger
Co-funded by the European Union
Duration: 3 days
Location: Berufsschule Längenfeldgasse, 1120 Wien
Time: 19, 26th May and 2nd June 2025
Within the project “What if…”, the participants look into their past and their future. In a playful and creative way, they discover exciting stories about their family and invent their own path that is yet to come: what story do you know from your family that sounds like a novel? What could it sound like if you could invent it? What if you were born in Spain or Canada, if you were the youngest of ten children or if you were to be born in the 18th century? What if you were to create one of the most important inventions for the continued existence of the world? Or if you just took the subway in the opposite direction from work for once?
Thoughts become stories, become scenes, become special moments. “What if…” shows the participants what could have been, but also what can still be. Rewrite your story!
In addition to the introduction to writing and especially dialogic writing, the workshop is based on a fundamental attitude of “empowerment”. The participants shall realize that they have stories worth telling and being listened to. They also learn about writing and reading aloud as a tool for empowering and giving themselves, their realities, and their priorities a space and a voice. The Participants shall experience the power of language and words as a way of reflecting, speaking and remaining silent.
Thereby they shall also learn to understand that literature can be used to process and work through almost anything. The motto for empowerment: “What I say and write matters.”
