Fabulamundi Playwriting Europe: New Voices
New Voices is the new edition of the successful European cooperation project Fabulamundi – Playwriting Europe. As an Austrian partner in the three-year EU project, we will be working with 13 partner organisations from 9 countries to promote young playwrights from 2023 to 2025.
The project goals and project activities at a glance:
– Support the creation of new texts for the stage with a focus on plays for young audiences.
– Promoting translations and exchange between participating playwrights, tutors and theatres.
– Presence and visibility of young Austrian playwrights for a large European theatre community through public presentations of the projects in digital formats as well as through performances, readings and publications.
– Creative writing workshops at schools, universities and theatres, including so-called “twinned workshops”, in which authors from two different countries jointly develop teaching concepts.
– Peer to peer learning sessions for playwrights and organisations
– 3 main topics: Environment and sustainability, gender balance, digitalisation
Projects of the WIENER WORTSTAETTEN as part of New Voices
Across disciplines, the FAB community offers a wide range of workshops developed locally in each partner country and extended internationally thanks to a mobility program with partnerships. For all workshops, a second guest playwright is invited to collaborate in order to promote dialog and enrich debate and exchange. The 19 playwrights will serve a broad audience of young people who are invited to participate in the projects. At the same time, they will be mentored by a group of international experts in a professional training program specifically designed to foster their artistic development and raise their awareness of the core issues: Gender and inclusion, green theatre and digitalization.
Drama Lab 2024
A success-proven format of the WORTSTAETTEN for the development of new texts for the stage with 5 young authors taking place from January to November 2024. Over the course of the months the writers are accompanied by WORTSTAETTEN playwright Bernhard Studlar, guest dramaturg Ingeborg von Zadow and actress and director Sonja Romei for their work starting from the first drafts going until the finished dramatic texts. At the end of the project, all plays will be presented in stage readings at the Wortstattnächte in November 2024.
Photo credit: Anna Zehetgruber
Gut gebrüllt: Schreib dich frei
The creativ writing workshop with 9 teenagers lead by Alexandra Koch and guest author Mihaela Michailov took place from March until June 2024. During 6 sessions the searching, finding and translation of personal as well as creative ideas into written language presented the main focus of the work. At the end of the workshop, the most interesting of the developed texts were presented in a stage reading.
Photo credit: Anna Zehetgruber
Labyrinths: Write. Get lost. Rewrite.
The workshop led by playwright Bernhard Studlar is aimed at young professional authors and students studying at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna and is offered as a course at the Institute for Literary Arts (Sprachkunst) in the winter semester 2024/25.
The concept of the “twinning scheme” connects the group from Vienna with a group of students from the Scuola Paolo Grassi in Milan, who are also studying playwriting and are taught by Italian author Magdalena Barile.
What is special about this workshop is that both tutors have worked on a joint concept in advance, which forms the basis of their work for both groups: Starting from the ancient myth of the Minotaur and the stories associated with it, we ask questions of reference to our present. From the very beginning, the stories of Greek mythology have inspired authors. The subjects of antiquity are universal and have been adapted, overwritten, reinterpreted and poetized. This is also the case in this workshop, which, in addition to the character of the Minotaur, is primarily dedicated to the labyrinth and its form that gives the workshop its title. The Swiss author Friedrich Dürrenmatt once said, “He who draws the plan of a labyrinth knows everything, but he who enters it knows nothing.” Accordingly, when you are designing a play, sketching it out, everything seems clear and logical. But when you start writing, all that clarity dissolves again. Write, get lost, rewrite. – Voilà, the title of this workshop.
During the workshop, the students will do small writing exercises to work on their technique, they will read ancient myths and design their own labyrinth. Step by step, they will develop an idea for a play (exposé) for an overwriting of the Minotaur myth and subsequently create scene material.
At first both groups will get to know each other via Zoom at the end of November and then visit each other in turn to intensify their collaboration. In December in Vienna and finally in January in Milan, both groups will discuss their texts. They will continue to work on the texts in bilingual small groups, with English as the lingua franca and the students’ texts written in German and Italian. The program of the two group mobilities will be expanded to include theater visits, exchanges with experts and various social activities.
Photo credit: Hector Manchego
Was wäre wenn (What if…)
Writing workshop with Alexandra Koch & Stefan Wipplinger
With the project “Was wäre wenn”, 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 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. “Was wäre wenn” shows the participants what could have been, but also what can still be. Rewrite your story!
In addition to the introduction to writing, especially dialogic writing, the workshop is based on a fundamental attitude of “empowerment”. The participants shall realize that they have stories worth telling and listening to. They also learn about writing and reading aloud as a tool for empowering themselves and giving themselves, their realities and their priorities a space and a voice. 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 work through and process almost anything. The motto for empowerment: “What I say and write carries value.”
The workshop will take place in May and June 2025 in Vienna.
FAB-Community
New Voices offers 66 creative and dramatic writing workshops led by 19 European playwrights from the so-called FAB community. The playwrights will travel across Europe in a partnership programme, meet other colleagues and teams thanks to the Cross the Map programme, and share insights and thoughts about playwriting in the video series In a New Light.
Across disciplines, the FAB community offers a wide range of workshops developed locally in each partner country and extended internationally thanks to a mobility programme with partnerships. A second guest playwright is invited to all workshops to collaborate, encouraging dialogue and enriching debate and exchange. The 19 playwrights will mentor a wide audience of young people who are invited to participate in the project. At the same time, they will be mentored by a group of international experts in a professional training programme specifically designed to enhance their artistic development and raise their awareness of the core issues: Gender and inclusion, green theatre and digitalisation.
International Meetings of New Voices 2023-2025
New Voices in Venice: 17th – 19th October 2023
The meeting in Venice focused on the topic of green theatre and sustainability. In the course of workshops with local and international experts inside and outside the host theater, Teatro del Veneto, the topics of green dramaturgy, creative writing with a focus on climate change, innovative forms of theatre mediation and opportunities to expand the community were discussed.
Photo credit: Hector Manchego
New Voices in Paris: 19th -22nd of February 2024
The meeting in Paris at the Théatre Ouvert focused on the one hand on digital theatre and innovations within the work of digital storytelling with lectures of the Academy for Theatre and Digitality Dortmund. On the other hand the topics of ethical theatre and ethical working within the artistic realm for artists from discriminated backgrounds were discussed. Finally, the writing of a Fabulamundi Manifesto was initiated and shall be continued within the future joint workshops.
Photo credit: Hector Manchego
New Voices in Belgrade: 2n -7th of October 2024
The meeting in Belgrade focused, among other things, on the topic of independent creative work in Serbia. With several visits to different theaters in the city, problems and working approaches were highlighted in the frame of the local scene and kicked off the discussion about how other cultural institutions struggling with the same problems in other countries face these difficulties . Furthermore the question of how the cultural scene can and should continue its work in a meaningful but also political way was addressed thoroughly. With regard to the Fabulamundi.New Voices project, the dramaturges exchanged creative working methods and discussed the last third of the long-term project and which workshops/courses/projects the respective partner institutions are still planning.
Photo credit: Hector Manchego
FAB community authors:
Alexandra Koch
Bernhard Studlar
Magdalena Barile
Nathalie Fillion
Eva Geatti
David Košťák
Patrik Lazić
Mihaela Michailov
Ewa Mikuła
Oriol Morales i Pujolar
Constance de Saint Remy
Roberto Scarpetti
Kateřina Součková
Biljana Srbljanović
Helena Tornero
Anna Wakulik
Elise Wilk
Stefan Wipplinger
Ingeborg Von Zadow
More about the playwrights: Fabulamundi New Voices: Playwrights Dossier
Project partners:
PAV (IT)
ASSOCIAZIONE CULTURALE AREA06 IT (IT)
ITZ – INTERKULTURELLES THEATERZENTRUM BERLIN E.V. (DE)
EUROPEAN THEATRE CONVENTION EV (DE)
THEATRE OUVERT (FR)
LA MOUSSON D’ÈTÈ (FR)
SALA BECKETT (ES)
TEATRUL ODEON (RO)
UNIVERSITATEA DE ARTE TARGU MURES (RO)
WIENER WORTSTATTEN (AT)
CULTURE ACTION EUROPE (BE)
DIVADLO LETI Z.S. (CZ)
HARTEFAKT FOND FONDACIJA (RS)
Associated partners:
FONDAZIONE PICCOLO TEATRO MILANO-TEATRO D’EUROPA (IT)
FONDAZIONE SCUOLE CIVICHE DI MILANO (IT)
APS AMLETA (IT)
ERT – EMILIA ROMAGNA TEATRO FONDAZIONE (IT)
ASSOCIAZIONE SANTACRISTINA CENTRO TEATRALE (IT)
ASSOCIAZIONE TEATRO DI ROMA (IT)
ECCOM (IT)
TEATRO LIBERO PALERMO ONLUS (IT)
ARTCENA (FR)
GEISSLERS HOFCOMOEDIANTEN Z.S. (CZ)
TEATRUL ARIEL (RO)
ARTinTRANSLATION (PL)
Photo credits: Hector Manchega
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