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ACILE IN WNOEDRLNAD

ENGLISH COMMUNITY THEATRE

ALICE_group1_webpresents its version of Lewis Carroll´s classic tale

If you’re reading this, I’m guessing you’re more than a little curious. But are you ready to take a tumble? Who knows where you’ll end up – this is Wonderland after all. We’ve all been following our own White Rabbits and we’re all simply terrified of the Queen of Hearts. Or are we? Saying what we mean is the same thing as meaning what we say, isn’t it? Mind the step or you’ll lose your mind. Enjoy the pepper, play croquet, try your best to speak the right way. Avoid the time, don’t cry when you’re sad, don’t talk to the Hatter or you’ll see that he’s mad. But you can’t help that – we’re all mad here… The day you become Alice is a very special day indeed.

“It all started long before I came here … It started all in my mind … It started with a magic speell…”

“My first impression of Wonderland was absolute freedom.”

Acile_web1“The first thing was the cold. Minus 14, bone chilling cold. I waited by the station watching the glide, almost silently along the tracks. I had forgotten the instructions. I didn´t know what train to get and i´d worn entirely the wrong kind of shoes.”

“I first came to Wonderland with friends in 1986 when I was still in High School.”

Top photo: Thomas Farr / all other photos: Hannes Frueh

till someone sneezes

Berlin International Youth Theatre´s 2012 show

tss_show_image-webloosely based on The Skin of Our Teeth by Thornton Wilder

The Skin of our Teeth, written in 1942, a time of strife for many people in the world, was meant to be a tribute to human endurance. In the original play, at the center is a family facing one apocalyptic catastrophe after another,

But in looking at the play through the eyes of an adolescent, the word “catastrophe” has different connotations.

How will the family survive when everyone is so preoccupied with pizza ? Does Playstation really help in times of panic? And why do the actors keep on interrupting the show? And what have they got against Guinea pig?

Although warned in the daily news of the coming Hurricane, epidemic or war, the family becomes caught up in their own personal problems making their chances of survival look – not very good.

BIYT-LOGOBIYT has turned this classic play into a dark comedy full of Simpson-like symbolism and created another one of their signature epics.

The play bounces and boings with the ingenious music of Natalia Lincoln and whimsical design of Silie Heeschen and a cast a talented youth ages 11-17 from 9 different countries. An event for the whole family – or not.

Between

Fourword Productions (South Africa)

between 2012_web

Lost somewhere between love and lust – a man, a boy, a couple, a teacher and his student .

When is sex exciting, slightly naughty, arousing and playful?
How does sex suddenly turn into a ritual, an act, a sacrifice… into emotional pain form which there is no coming back? An emotional dead end from which a relationship is hard pressed to return from.
Three separate, yet suggestively interlinked, stories explore how love can transcend sexual boundaries and what happens when the love disappears and the loss becomes acute.

'between' 3Between has been nominated for two prizes at the 2012 Dublin Gay Theatre Festival: The Oscar Wilde Award for Best writing (Oskar Brown) and The Micheal Mac Liammoir Award for Best Male Performance (Nick Campbell)

Farewell! thou art too dear for my possessing,
And like enough thou know’st thy estimate,
Thus have I had thee, as a dream doth flatter,
In sleep a king, but waking no such matter.
William Shakespeare

I, Ca$$ie… or The End of Days

by Matthew Earnest

cassie3“Hi, I’m Ca$$ie, standard-bearer of the apocalypse! May I take your order?”

Inspired by Cassandra, the shrill prophet of doom from Greek mythology, Matthew Earnest’s piece features Ca$$ie – head cheerleader, homecoming queen, and soon-to-be-named valedictorian of Troy High School – doing community service hours in a fast food drive-thru. Ca$$ie is on probation for driving drunk after last week’s homecoming game, and ever since the resulting car accident that injured most of her friends and put her brother Hector in a coma, Ca$$ie has been having “the freakiest dreams,” horrifying visions about the end of the world. The most persistent one, about a tall horse at the gate, is especially annoying, and all Ca$$ie really wants is sleep.

“Somebody please just pour gasoline on my life and strike a match.”

Impervious to her nightmares, Ca$$ie files her nails, plays war games on her phone, calls her friends and takes orders at the cell-like window of the drive-thru. She has no idea that this night will be her last. After a series of economic meltdowns, brazen displays of breathtaking greed and corruption, and massive cuts in education to fund imperialistic wars, her formerly great nation is vulnerable and ill equipped for the modern world. Armageddon is encroaching just outside. The riots and looting have already begun. Great cities are in flames from coast to coast. The bankers and congressmen are already tanning on the beaches of Caribbean resort communities. And this is where it all ends: with a spoiled, oblivious teenager in a disposable building.

The First Time

Close your eye. Close them.
Can you remember it like it was yesterday, or is everything blurred and indistinct?

TMP2012_KID

 

 

Your first day at school?
Your first bike?
Your first kiss?
Your first dance?
Your first job?
Your first fight?
Your first love?
Your first hate?

 

 

The winners were:

Golden Gates by Rosie Skan

My First Apocalypse by Maxwell Flaum

The Red Couch by Marie Franz

Spin the World Around by Kate McCane

Authorization Breakdown by Martin Esters

Erika Hughes studied at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts/Playwrights Horizons Theatre School and holds a Ph.D. in Theatre and Drama from the University of Wisconsin. She has over fifteen years of experience as a director, designer and performer.

Designer Jeans Genes

Biopolitical scenarios from a terribly blessed future

Will synthetic biology provide us with ”improved” children, never-seen-before pets and ideal partners? Will we no longer accept our naturally-given characteristics, but rather enhance ourselves to become an ideal version of ourselves to reach our goals in life? Will the genetically engineered, beautified and improved half of humanity rule, while the other not so fortunate (or rich) half serves? Will we be able to eradicate deadly genetic diseases?

The answers to these and similar questions will come not in some distant utopia, but within our lifetimes. There will be unpredictable social consequences and challenges that our children will soon have to deal with. In the Science&Theatre school project ‘Designer Jeans Genes‘, some of them are already starting today!

The project was part of SCIENCE & THEATRE 2012 and consisted of performances and an exhibition exploring synthetic biology, developed by students of Heinrich-Schliemann-Gymnasium, Humboldt-Gymnasium, and Leibniz-Schule.
supported  by    Kulturprojekte Berlin_Logo_100pixbreit     fu_logo_150

The exhibition on genetic experiments and artistic studies of the DNA as well as ethical viewpoints on the subject by students of the three schools opens on February 6 at 6pm and is open on performance days one hour before showtime until March 10th.

„Vielen Dank für dieses Erlebnis! Es sollte viel mehr solche Projekte geben die den Schülern nicht nur Englisch und Schauspielern beibringen, sondern sie auch noch mit einem so komplexen Thema vertraut machen. Die Debatte über die Gentechnik ist ideologisch so aufgeladen und die Vorurteile in den Köpfen sind so festgefahren, dass es mich sehr verblüfft hat mit welcher Offenheit und Sachlichkeit die Schüler an dieses Thema herangegangen sind. Aus dieser Offenheit kamen sehr phantasievolle und interessante Ansätze die mich wirklich begeistert haben. Solche Erfolge haben wir mit vielen Jahren Aufklärung in Schulen nicht erreicht! Euch ist es gelungen, die Wissenschaft zum Thema der Schüler zu machen und nicht zu einem Lehrfach in der Schule. Ich wäre sehr froh, wenn man so etwas auch für die Grüne Gentechnik machen könnte.“ – Inge Broer, Professorin für Agrobiotechnologie und Begleitforschung zur Bio- und Gentechnologie, Agrar-und umweltwissenschaftliche Fakultät, Universität Rostock

Photograph 51

by ANNA ZIEGLER

Photograph51_Bau_01_c_RGBA science play about a revolutionary discovery – and how the boys took over

In the early 1950s the young Jewish scientist Rosalind Franklin had to struggle with a frustratingly male-dominated science establishment at King´s College in London. Some of her colleagues even refused to acknowledge her doctoral title, while access to the faculty club, which was reserved to men, remained denied to her.

After months of work, she succeeded in taking the X-ray photograph that became the turning point for elucidating the DNA double helical structure: photograph 51. However, the credit for this revolutionary scientific discovery was given to the men who used the picture without her knowledge; Franklin´s crucial contribution went unacknowledged for decades.

When James Watson, Francis Crick and Franklin´s colleague Maurice Wilkins received the Nobel prize in 1962, she had been dead for four years.

English Theatre Berlin; PHOTOGRAPH 51In a nutshell, Anna Ziegler‘s play shows the making of an outstanding scientific discovery in a bone-dry, ritualized and women-excluding male establishment, in which an emotional minefield, social coldness and hierarchies, antisemitism and ferocious fighting for recognition and scientific priority went hand-in-hand with scientific curiosity, meticulousness and juvenile enthusiasm. (in 1952, James Watson was just 24 years old, Rosalind Franklin was 32 !).

Photograph 51 was the third production in our Science & Theatre program.

Supported by   Druck  fu_logo_150

Image: Magnus Hengge / Photos: Christian Jungeblodt

 

Dark

by S. D. Clifford

Dark_WebHere is Terry, an obsessive-compulsive depressive with a fear of light. In order to cope with the terror of everyday living he forces himself to remain in an almost constant self-induced psychosis, maintaining only impersonal superficial relationships with inanimate objects like his boots and radio.

Terry´s world comes crashing down when out of the blue he is informed that he is to be executed with immediate effect. He is also given the task of organizing it himself. This includes the execution, the funeral and the payment of his outstanding debts.

But there is nothing to fear. There never has been.

Lady Lay

a new play by LYDIA STRYK

“I´ll let you be in my dreams if I can be in yours.”

English Theatre Berlin > LADY LAYMarianne has worked at the Berliner Arbeitsamt all her life and then she hears Bob Dylan on the radio and the Wall falls down.

Although she can hardly understand the words, she takes a journey—both joyful and terrifying—into Dylan’s world, putting her very existence in jeopardy.

“There must be some way out of here …”

“Welcome to the Office of Employment. Berlin Division, District Seven. It is run as an efficient operation. And it is. It’s a system, after all. It could run without us. Maybe it will one day. It has rules. But behind the rules is reality. And no two things could be more opposite. Rule: You must work. Reality: There is no work. Rule: We provide work. Reality: there is no work. Rule: Our economy and survival depend on work. Reality: there is no work. Not here. Not any more.”

Lady Lay takes a joy ride through life’s rules and regulations. But what is freedom? And can Bob Dylan take you there?
A joy ride through the Arbeitsamt to Freedom!

“Yippee! I’m a poet, and I know it. Hope I don’t blow it.”

English Theatre Berlin > LADY LAYLydia Stryk was born in DeKalb, Illinois, birthplace of barbed wire and is now based in Berlin. She is the author of over a dozen full-length plays including Monte Carlo, The House of Lily, The Glamour House, American Tet and An Accident, which have been part of festivals around the United States and produced at, among others, Denver Center Theatre, Steppenwolf Theatre Company, Victory Gardens, HB Studios, The Contemporary American Theatre Festival, Magic Theatre, and in Germany at Schauspiel Essen, Theaterhaus Stuttgart and Forum Theater with Schauspiel Independent and featured at Biennale Bonn. Her plays are published by Broadway Play Publishing and Per Lauke Verlag, and excerpts appear in numerous anthologies including Acts of War: Iraq and Afghanistan in Seven Plays from Northwestern University Press. American Tet was produced at the English Theatre Berlin in November 2008.

Photos by Christian Jungeblodt

The man of Shadows

Shadows-Web PicEarliest memory … earliest memory … let’s see … Fear … naturally.

The Man of Shadows is a darkly humorous play that tells the story of Val Arkam jr, a faded Hollywood horror star, and his encounter with young Laura Starling, a talented journalist and daughter of the film critic that originally named him “The Man of Shadows”. It was the name that launched a dramatic career as dark, gothic and outright frightening off-screen as on. – In a last bid for fame and validation Arkam conjures a lost world of old Hollywood horror, and Laura finally confronts “the old darkness” she lost her farther to long ago. And in the end, of course, a terrible secret is revealed that will change Laura’s life forever…

“Where be Death this midsummer’s day?
Why he sits in the house where the shadow men play.”

Anon – Sonnets for the Cradle (London, c.1765)

For centuries the Shadow Men and their travelling theatre have been feared as much as they have been welcomed. It was believed that Death himself was their patron, so enchanted was he with their playing. Yet those brave few who found the courage to attend the most bloodcurdling tales of terror ever performed were said to live long and charmed lives thereafter.

Darren Robert Smith
Born in England, Smith has been on stage since age five. He was trained at the Drama Centre London, where he was sponsored by Sir Anthony Hopkins, and has appeared on stages all over Europe.

Guenther Primig
born in Austria, Primig immigrated to California, and, from there, to Berlin. Writes film scripts, short stories and plays. His most recent work appeared in the Shirley Jackson Award nominated anthology Shades Of Darkness.

The Theatre Of Shadows
founded in 2010, is dedicated to producing original plays of the macabre and new stagings of classic tales of horror.What better way to celebrate the haunted season of Halloween than with this new production of their successful “The Man Of Shadows,” newly expanded and presented in preparation for its 2012 London premiere.