Theater Oberhausen’s New Stages South East Festival will present the work of young theatre artists from the region.
Intended as a showcase for the work of a new generation of South-Eastern European writers and theatre makers, the festival will take place between April 20-23 2023 at Theater Oberhausen. It will feature work by young creatives from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Greece, Croatia, Romania, the Republic of Moldova, Serbia and Cyprus.
Produced in partnership with the Goethe Institute, the festival will feature texts from a new generation of theatre artists who participated in the project, working with mentors including Ana Konstantinović, Cristian Popescu, Christos Georgiou, Dea Loher, Dragan Komadina, Gerhild Steinbuch, Ivana Sajko, Ivor Martinić, Jens Hillje, Maria Milisavljević, Prodromos Tsinikoris, Rebekka Kricheldorf, Tanja Sljivar and Ulrike Syha. A jury led by artistic director Kathrin Mädler assessed the resulting texts
The selected texts include A Celebration of Loneliness by Katerina Georgieva, Acid by Asja Krsmanović, Darkness on the Edge of Town, a piece by Dario Bevanda, Generation Lost by Greg Liakopoulos (& Collective) and I Can Only Fall Asleep If I Imagine it Is Snowing by Teona Galgotiu. Many of the pieces address the problems faced by the younger generation today, the (non)-processing of the Yugoslav Wars, the debit crisis, the complicated relationship between the past and the present, nostalgia and memory.
In addition to the five main texts, six other dramatic texts created as part of New Stages South East will be presented. The festival programme will also include concerts, workshops and a guest programme of work from Belgrade, Bucharest and Munich.
The festival will open on 20th April with The Lepa Brena Project, a piece by Vladimir Aleksić and Olga Dimitrijević about the Yugoslav pop icon. The programme will also include Turbovolk3000, a theatrical radio show, and Alina Șerban’s The Best Child in the World.
Main Image: The Lepa Brena Project
For more information, visit: theater-oberhausen.de
Further reading: review of The Lepa Brena Project
Natasha Tripney is a writer, editor and critic based in London and Belgrade. She is the international editor for The Stage, the newspaper of the UK theatre industry. In 2011, she co-founded Exeunt, an online theatre magazine, which she edited until 2016. She is a contributor to the Guardian, Evening Standard, the BBC, Tortoise and Kosovo 2.0
