Productions | English Theatre Berlin

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Clever

CLEVER. The live comedy panel game show with Berlin’s funniest comedians!

Covering a wide range of games, puzzles and topics, this is Berlin’s best and only live game show. Be it astrophysics, history, geography or sports, local heroes from the lands of improv and stand-up comedy will be put to the test. Hosted by Canada’s Lee White (Crumbs), he challenges the comical combatants to prove who’s the cleverest. A correct answer will get you points… unless someone gives a funnier one. At the end of the day, being the smartest or funniest isn’t enough: in this exhilarating, interactive comedy quiz you have to be CLEVER to win!

CLEVER. The game show where the audience always wins laughs.

Featuring contestants Inbal Lori, Damien Warren-Smith and Björn Harras!

Zoë Beck

liest aus ihrem neuen Kriminalroman Die Lieferantin.

London, in einer nicht wirklich fernen Zukunft: Ein Drogenhändler treibt tot in der Themse, ein Schutzgelderpresser verschwindet spurlos. Ellie Johnson weiß, dass auch sie in Gefahr ist – sie leitet das heißeste Start-up Londons und zugleich das illegalste: Über ihre App bestellt man Drogen in höchster Qualität und sie werden von Drohnen geliefert. Anonym, sicher, perfekt organisiert.
Die Sache hat nur einen Haken – die gesamte Londoner Unterwelt fühlt sich von ihrem Geschäftsmodell bedroht und will ›Die Lieferantin‹ tot sehen. Ein Kopfgeld wird auf sie ausgesetzt. Ellie beschließt zu kämpfen – ihre Gegner sind mächtig, und sie lauern an jeder Straßenecke.

Zoë Beck

gehört zu den profiliertesten KrimiautorInnen Deutschlands. Sie schreibt Romane und Erzählungen, übersetzt und leitet zusammen mit Jan Karsten den CulturBooks Verlag. Sie studierte englische und deutsche Literatur u.a. in Gießen, Bonn und Durham und war anschließend Creative Producerin für internationale Fernsehfilmproduktionen. Seit 2004 macht sie Redaktion, Dialogbuch und Regie für Synchronproduktionen. 2010 erhielt sie den Friedrich-Glauser-Preis in der Sparte „Bester Kurzkrimi“, 2014 den Krimipreis von Radio Bremen und 2016 den Deutschen Krimipreis, National Platz 3, für Schwarzblende. Das zerbrochene Fenster* wurde von der Jury der KrimiZEITBestenliste unter die zehn besten Kriminalromane im September 2012 gewählt, Brixton Hill im Januar, Februar und März 2014, Schwarzblende im März, April, Mai und Juni 2015. Zoë Becks Romane und Erzählungen wurden bisher in neun Sprachen übersetzt.

Photo: Victoria Tomaschko / Suhrkamp Verlag

#Instalove

Is this love? Is this weakness? Hope or desperation? Why do we do it? Again and again.

Let’s try it together. You and me. Tonight. Tonight will be our story. The story of how we met, how it was magical and easy, how we laughed. Your eyes, your smell, the taste of your skin.

#Instalove is our story. A participatory performance. A real-time attempt at you + me = us. It begins with an impulse, a desire to connect. A dating app sets us in motion. I show you my selves. My many selves. You make a choice. Which of me do you want? Which of you do I want? Who will I become with you? Who will you be with me?

Let’s give it a shot. If it doesn’t work out, if it begins to slow down, if the cracks start appearing – the neglect, the tear, the break – we can try again. I can repeat the past, or I can move forward.

Each night is unique. Each night is our own. #Instalove is our chance at us.

After presenting Catherine’s performance Celebrity Bound first as part of the 2014 Expat Expo | Immigrant Invasion Festival and then in two separate additional runs, we are thrilled to be able to produce the world premiere of #Instalove!

A pre- or post-performance event will be held every night, including speed dating, a talk on genderfluidity and modern love, interactive gaming presented by BerlinGameScene.com and more!

Thursday, July 6: A post-performance discussion about intimacy, identity, relationships and sexuality with Franziska Krüger, Lisa Kirchner and Susanne Scheerer | www.cambyo.co

Friday, July 7: A post-performance discussion with Catherine Duquette and Ruth Sergel, moderated by Daniel Brunet

Saturday, July 8: Speed Dating with Elise Terranova | www.eliseterranova.com

Thursday, July 13: Lorenzo Pilia and BerlinGameScene.com will showcase three games by Franziska Zeiner in our lobby, followed by a post-performance discussion moderated by Elise Terranova

Franziska Zeiner is a game designer and print magazine editor, interested in creating meaningful, user-centered experiences. She is passionate about feminism, quirky games, observing mundane everyday interactions and turning them into digital experiences.

The following games will be available to play from Thursday, July 13 through Saturday, July 15:

• social_me – A surreal, socio-political game that mimics players and their social media habits

• Kiss Me Maybe – A competitive kissing game

• Single Player – A speed dating simulator (made with Major Bueno)

Franziska will also be talking about her work together with Elise Terranova, host of Life and Dev podcast.

Friday, July 14: A post-performance discussion with Lovoo about dating in the 21st century, in collaboration with Theater Scoutings Berlin

Saturday, July 15: A post-performance discussion on human interaction in the digital era and how people meet people nowadays with Alex J. Eccleston of the Bad Bruises and The House of Red Doors

Special thanks to Lovoo for their support!

Berlin-based US-American performer, writer, director Catherine Duquette specializes in audience-performer relations and improvisation within scripted drama. She creates intimate participatory works that draw on autobiographical materials to share contemporary experiences with active audiences. Curious about expanding notions of performance, Catherine fuses theater, interactive poetry, scripts, and choice-based narrative for video games. She is currently exploring game design as a dramaturgical approach to theater in order to allow audiences more emotional and personal investment in what happens on stage.

Based in Berlin, her work has been supported by MOMENTUM Gallery, Camden People’s Theatre, Battersea Arts Centre, theSpaceUK, TRAFO Center for Contemporary Art in Poland, a Fulbright Fellowship in Spain, the International Festival of the Delphic Games in Greece, the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art in Denver, Colorado, and the Subterranean Art House in Berkeley, California.

Artist and agitator Ruth Sergel creates compassionate works that explode out the boundaries of traditional mediums. Inspired by rebels, visionary pedagogues and magicians, Ruth’s work bridges art and technology, memory and wonder to incite individual and social transformation. Ruth’s films, public interventions and interactive installations have been exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art, Boston Museum of Fine Art, Corcoran Gallery of Art, National Museum of Women in the Arts, New-York Historical Society, Gray Art Gallery, Anthology Film Archives and 3LD Art + Technology Center. Her work has been shown internationally including Clermont-Ferrand (France), Shift Festival (Basel) and Théâtre de la Ville, (Paris) as well as broadcast on the Independent Film Channel (IFC) and PBS.

Ruth’s projects have been supported by the Jerome Foundation, New York State Council on the Arts, Experimental Television Center, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council and the 21st Century ILGWU Heritage Fund. Ruth was the Resident Researcher in Video at New York University’s Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP) where she received her Master’s degree and a fellow in Public Humanities at Brown University. Additional residencies include Yaddo, Squeaky Wheel, CESTA (Czech Republic), Digital Performance Institute, and Here Arts Center. Her work has been widely covered in the press including the New York Times, NY Daily News, NPR, CNN, and the Huffington Post.

Till Someone Sneezes (Berlin International Youth Theatre)

BIYT – the Berlin International Youth Theatre – takes a look at community and catastrophe.

The Skin of Our Teeth was written by Thornton Wilder in 1942, a time of strife for many people in the world, and was meant to be a tribute to human endurance. The center of the original play is an archetypical family facing one apocalyptic catastrophe after another.

Using this play as an inspiration, BIYT has created a dark comedy full of Simpsons-like symbolism and churned out another one of their signature epics.

Although warned in the daily news of the approaching disasters, this conventional family is so caught up in their own personal conflicts that their chances of survival don’t look very good. How will the family survive when everyone is so preoccupied with pizza? Does PlayStation really help in times of panic? Why do the actors keep on interrupting the show? And what in the world have they got against guinea pigs?

Come and find out!

Originally written and performed by BIYT in 2012, we revisit this comedy favorite with an exciting new design, new plot twists and performed by an all-new cast of talented youth ages 11-17 from 10 different countries.

BIYT has been part of English Theatre Berlin | International Performing Arts Center since 2009 and is made up of young people from many different countries, cultures, religions and schools. The goal is to to create a social exchange between different cultures, promote integration and to make high quality theater using the global language of English.

When I See You I Think of…Dentist

A search for identity

Life is weird, mine is too. My passport says I’m British. But I was born here. My parents are British. My name is as well. My first language is German. I think it’s easier than English. People in the UK call me “the German”. People in Germany call me “the English girl”. I’m confused. What am I? Where do I belong? And where am I?…..ahh, no I know where I am. Leeds. West Yorkshire. England. But what does it take to be British? To become British?

This theater performance deals with the feeling of belonging somewhere – or not.

2017 EXP(L)O(RE)

A JOURNEY OF DISCOVERY
This format opens the festival and is dedicated to newcomers, shorter performances and work-in-progress. Spend an entire afternoon taking in twelve performances on stage, in dressing rooms and all around the theater. In between the performances, you can enjoy fantastic food, luxurious libations and magnificent music by international, Berlin-based musicians. Performances start at 2pm and we open our doors at 1pm.

AHNENAMT/MINISTRY FOR ANCESTORS by Club Real (Austria)

This long-term project about a new aesthetic practice of elective kinship is a scenic installation – a parallel reality which needs to be entered by visitors to come to life. It examines a new cultural practice: the possibility to adopt an ancestor.

CARLOS WHISPER by Katie Lee Dunbar (UK)

A one-on-one performance in which individual audience members are whisked off into a sonic wonderland, all centered around a table of seemingly random objects. The connections are only made clear once you put the headphones on.

EPILOGUE by Noemi Berkowitz (USA/Poland)

What might life after death look like… and what implications would that have for life before death? In this two-woman play, a girl finds pieces of herself in stories from across the world and across time. A performance about the ways we develop in our journeys forward.

HYO (효) by Haenny Park (South Korea)

This piece was inspired by a famous Korean folktale, very often told to the artist by her father as a child. It tells the story of a son who digs up a grave to steal a human leg, which he will use to save his dying mother.

I DON’T WEAR SKIRTS BECAUSE I NEVER LEARNED TO CROSS MY LEGS by Angela Millano (Spain)

This performance is a protest against the normalization, legislation and control of our bodies and the need to fulfill standards perceived as natural. It is a rebellion by a vulnerable and violent body that feels beyond the social, professional and personal limitations imposed on it.

INTIMATE ARSENAL (A QUARTET) by Claudia Grigg Edo (UK/Catalonia)

Sit down at the table. On the other side of the table is HER. Stay with her as she navigates one of four situations. If you like, you can watch it loop round again in this interactive video projection.

LATENT DREAMS by Katrine Turner (Scotland)

This performance is about the Apocalypse. About the rising sea waters, and the invisible plagues. About when Cillian wakes up from his coma, and there’s no one about so he breaks into a vending machine for a can of Coke. About the futures we allow ourselves to envision.

MOUTH CONTROL by MILK (USA)

Sometimes it’s easier to be honest when no one is around. We are more open in text messages and status updates than we are in face-to-face interactions with others. In Mouth Control, we ask the audience to test the limitations of distance and vulnerability in real time. We invite you to play a game with us.

SKEWED by Shanti Suki Osman (UK)

A solo performance using song, storytelling and sound. Using live and prerecorded voice and field recordings, Shanti
Suki Osman presents 4 songs documenting her exploration of self-fetishization as a means for empowerment.

SWEETS FOR A STORY by Bees Knees Sweets (Canada)

An exploration of connecting with strangers and their stories using food as a catalyst. Food is universal. It’s something we all want and need as human beings, and therefore is something that unites us as people. Food can tell our stories, as well as inspire them.

THE FOURTH UNITY by Renen Itzhaki (Israel)

A room. A bookshelf. A small group of people. They walk in circles. They are all one. They read a book. Sometimes out loud. Sometimes they stop. Sometimes a memory.

THE WHEEL by Connecting Fingers (UK/Italy)

From the script by philosopher Sara Fortuna, inspired by Dogville from Lars von Trier, four dancers explore a circular conceptual space organized in several steps in this work-in-progess showing: sleep/pre-birth/origin, child-like openness to the adult world in its tensions, contradictions, competitions, failures and eventual coming back to the starting point.

Parataxe – International Literature

Parataxe – Berlin’s international literature community:

What languages does Berlin write in? Notable Berlin writers who do not write in German are presented in conversation, reading and translation.

For the collaboration with English Theatre Berlin | International Performing Arts Center, the evening features Dario Deserri (Italy / Berlin) and his translator Anna Giannessi as well as Rasha Abbas (Syria / Berlin) and their German editor Nikola Richter, hosted by Martin Jankowski.

Clowns’ Houses

Puppet theater for adults by Merlin Puppet Theatre

One building, five apartments, six characters. The audience watches them live their conventional lives in a dark, claustrophobic setting, with their fears, obsessions and loneliness.

Merlin Puppet Theatre dramatizes and demonizes their obsessions until they finally punish and liberate them in the most violent manner. They do not attempt to do existential analysis through their work. Instead, they examine modern way of living in its current form. The loneliness of modern humanity is displayed through the dark rooms of Clowns’ Houses; prison-like houses, people trapped in their routines and habits, far from their dreams.

L’ART ET LA MANIÈRE and PLANTING MEMORIES

Two dance theater performances

L’art et la manière explores the relationship between everyday movements and artistic actions in an engaging, fun and critical way. Through this this interactive dialogue with the audience, Marie questions her identity as an interpreter, a woman and the role artists have in society.

Planting Memories is a dance duet that explores the concepts of personal space and identity. Drawing inspiration from their own lives, Marie and Paula relate personal memories through text and images. By plunging into a surreal world, this piece guides the audience through a personal journey in which the unfolding of the past enables the present.

Shlomo’s Friends

Every immigrant has to form new relationships.

So did Shlomo Lieberman when he came to Berlin.

In this performance, he invites new friends to present ancient texts related to his name twin, King Solomon. These texts deal with love, desire, decency, morality and posing disturbing questions about the meaning of life.

Friends are asked to choose from these texts, to perform them as they see fit and to offer a new understanding of them. The mission is to create a new emotional landscape on the background of an old one in which people can become friends.