etb English
Theatre
Berlin International Performing Arts Center

GERMAN PREMIERE

Celebration, Florida is a town located right next to Disney World and was originally developed by Disney as a sort of idealistic, controlled, manicured, shiny version of what the perfect town should be. It is an actual town, but at the same time a simulation of a town. What does this town mean to Greg Wohead? What happens when we miss a person, place or time? What does the performance tell about the human connection?

Veering between reality and simulation, Celebration, Florida orbits around ideas of surrogacy; a stand-in to replace a person you miss, a re-creation of an experience you can’t stop thinking about, nostalgia for a place that never existed.

This is a show for anyone who has ever missed anyone or anything.

Greg Wohead will speak to you through two performers using pre-recorded audio and headphones. The performers will know almost nothing about the show and they will meet for the first time when they walk on stage.

Performed on Tuesday, March 13 by Carrie Getman and Andre Neely

Performed on Wednesday, March 14 by Quatis Tarkington and Saudia Young

“A moving tone poem on loss and retrieval”

★★★★ Stewart Pringle, The Stage

“A work of great sensitivity written with enviable grace and poise”

Simon Bowes, After the Lights Fade

Featuring a post-performance discussion on Tuesday, March 13 in collaboration with Theater Scoutings Berlin!

Commissioned by The Albany and developed at The Yard. Supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England.

Greg Wohead is a writer, performer and live artist originally from Texas and now working in London. He makes theatre performances, one-to-one pieces and audio works. His work has been seen at theatres and festivals in the UK, US and Europe including Battersea Arts Centre, London (UK), Bristol Old Vic (UK), Mayfest, Bristol (UK), Northern Stage, Newcastle (UK), Forest Fringe, Edinburgh (UK), Bios, Athens (Greece), Brighton Festival (UK), Fusebox Festival , Austin (USA) and ArtPower, San Diego (USA). He’s an Associate Artist at The Yard and Shoreditch Town Hall in London.

“Dear performer. I want to show you something. Did you know, in Farsi my name is written like this:  ‘.ROUPNAMIELOS MISSAN si eman yM’ ? Did you know ‘Nassim’ means ‘breeze’ in Farsi?”

From Berlin-based Iranian playwright Nassim Soleimanpour comes an audacious theatrical experiment that explores the power of language to unite us in unknown, uncertain times.

No rehearsals. No preparation. Just a sealed envelope and an actor reading a script for the first time. Plus some tomatoes.

WINNER of the Fringe First Award at Edinburgh Fringe 2017

NASSIM follows Soleimanpour’s globally acclaimed White Rabbit Red Rabbit, which has been translated into over 25 different languages and performed over 1,000 times by names including Sinead Cusack, Ken Loach and Whoopi Goldberg including five performances at English Theatre Berlin | International Performing Arts Center in October 2013.

 “A strikingly gentle, humane and emotive consideration of the experience of an artist living and working in the diaspora.” | The Herald

“Emotionally charged theatrical experiment.” | The Stage

“An unusually vivid celebration of theatre’s liveness.” | The Guardian

“As he heightens the audience’s sense of complicity in his art, Soleimanpour makes a quietly persuasive case for theatre’s special power to foster empathy.” | London Evening Standard

Nassim Soleimanpour (playwright and performer) is an independent multidisciplinary theater maker best known for his multi award-winning play White Rabbit Red Rabbit. Nassim’s play Blank premiered in the UK at the Bush Theatre’s RADAR festival in 2015, also playing in Amsterdam and Utrecht with further performances all over the world including at the Edinburgh Fringe and in Argentina, Australia and India. Further plays include Blind Hamlet which premiered at LIFT Festival 2014 prior to a UK tour and productions in Bucharest and Copenhagen. Nassim now lives in Berlin and has been commissioned to write a new play for Teater Momentum (Denmark).

Pics: David Monteith-Hodge / Studio Doug

Death is no longer a moment. It is a process. A process that can be reversed.

Two friends, talking (and singing) about what happens when we die, how we think about dying, and most importantly, how some of us might be brought back.

Performed by Unlimited founding members Jon Spooner and Chris Thorpe, Am I Dead Yet? is filled with stories and songs about death and dying and about how we don’t talk about it enough.

This new show from Unlimited Theatre, one of the most renowned British theatre companies, is inspired by research into contemporary developments in resuscitation science and made in collaboration with emergency care professionals.

“Vibrantly theatrical and typically absorbing” **** Independent

“Chris Thorpe and Jon Spooner’s electric view on the dying process will rewrite your expectations for your final end” **** The Stage

“An enjoyable, poignant cabaret piece about death in the distant and all-too-near future” The Guardian

We are very excited to welcome Chris Thorpe back to English Theatre Berlin | International Performing Arts Center following our work together on his scintillating solo performance, Confirmation, as part of Theatertreffen / Stückemarkt Revisited 2015.

Watch the trailer on YouTube:

Jon Spooner is a director, writer, performer, founder member and the artistic director of Unlimited. He has directed and performed in numerous Unlimited shows, including Fringe First winners Static (invited to English Theatre Berlin in 2002) Neutrino, Safety by Chris Thorpe (with the Crucible Theatre, Sheffield) and Zero Degrees & Drifting. Jon also co-writes and directs the annual Christmas show for the BBC’s CBeebies channel filmed live at a major UK theatre and then broadcast on CBeebies and BBC One.

Chris Thorpe is a founder member and a core artist with Unlimited, and also an artistic associate of Third Angel. As a solo performer, he is making a cycle of solo pieces called Eating Wasps and continues to collaborate with companies like Slung Low, RashDash and Soup Collective, with whom he wrote and recorded the piece The Bomb On Mutannabbi Street Is Still Exploding, which has been permanently installed at the Imperial War Museum North. Chris has won Fringe First Awards in 2011 (for The Oh Fuck Moment with Hannah Jane Walker) and 2014 for Confirmation. His durational theatrical experience, The Milk of Human Kindness was at the Royal Court in London in 2016. He recently wrote Chorus for The Iphegenia Quartet at the Gate Theatre, as well as a new piece, Victory Condition, for the Royal Court which will open in September 2017.

Director Amy Hodge’s credits include The Ethics of Progress for Unlimited Theatre, Our Big Land (Romany Theatre Company), The Rover (Hampton Court Palace), Romeo and Juliet (Theatre Uz, Uzbekistan for the British Council). She was Associate Director at Sherman Cymru from 2008 to 2011 and has also directed shows at the Tricycle, Young Vic, Orange Tree Theatre and West Yorkshire Playhouse. Amy was Studio Associate at the National Theatre (2013-14) and was the recipient of the 2007 Jerwood Directors Award.