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ECHTER BERLINER !!!! IHR NICHT FUCK YOU

FUCK YOU TOURISTS. NO MORE ROLLKOFFER. WELCOME TO SCHWABYLON. Berlin U. Greetings from the Berlin welcoming committee in the form of meter-high graffiti adorning every available surface. One, ECHTER BERLINER !!!! IHR NICHT FUCK YOU, especially invites questions. What is a “real Berliner”? According to whom?

ECHTER BERLINER !!!! IHR NICHT FUCK YOU is a documentary theater piece exploring the diverging and converging experiences of so-called “expats”, often coming from comparably richer countries who travel to Berlin for self-realization, with those of so-called “immigrants”, often coming from comparably poorer countries for financial survival. At least, these are the generalizations.

For this piece, an international ensemble of six performers, each connected to a so-called “expat” or “immigrant” group, have conducted interviews with more than 60 members of their respective communities about their experiences in Berlin. Every word spoken on stage is taken from direct transcriptions of these interviews, revealing an oft-surprising picture of reality far beyond the banality of stereotypes.

ETB_ECHTER BERLINER__Lynn Femme4_foto by Manuela Schauerhammer

Production photo by Manuela Schauerhammer

ECHTER BERLINER !!!! IHR NICHT FUCK YOU is the first part of Aliens of Extraordinary Abilities?, a two-part project investigating the experiences of so-called “expats” and so-called “immigrants” in Berlin and the Hauptstadt’s rapidly changing cityscape. The second part, Terrain of Threshold Voices, a collaboration with DISTRICT Kunst- und Kulturförderung, will take place in November and December.

This project is funded by the Hauptstadtkulturfonds (Capital Cultural Fund).

Bridge Markland: robbers in the box

bridge_robbers in the box

One of Germany’s most popular plays by one of Germany’s most popular authors, Friedrich Schiller – Radical and provocative at the time of its premiere in 1782, Bridge Markland presents it as a fast-speed One-Woman plus Puppets-Lip-Sync-Show with sexy Ken dolls as robbers and an original East German nutcracker.
Rebellion, envy, love, stubborness, hero-worship and desperation! Markland reinforces Schiller’s strong language with more then 150 songs, including many film themes ranging from Wagner´s Ride of the Valkyries to Lady Gaga, from Ennio Morricone to the theme from Dallas, Rammstein and a lot more great music.

Schiller’s translated text is spoken by actors from Berlin’s English-language theatre community like Peter Scollin from Playtpus Theater as the Old Moor, or Jeffrey Mittleman as Spiegelberg, and many others.

English-language premiere of robbers in the box: January 24th 2013 at English Theatre Berlin

THE FULL IRISH

Ten Days of Contemporary Irish Theatre and Performance

Berlin Was Yesterday: Expatriate Traffic from the Kaiser to Kotti

Ten-Minute Play Competition 2013

10MP_Image-Web “Nackt besser aussehen.” — Jiminy McFIT

You ever feel like the whole ExPat thing has gotten a bit overblown? The gig seems flabby…puffed up and bloated by tag lines, slackers, and The New York Times. Remember the days when you really had to work for your Berliner Pfannkuchen? When it wasn’t just a 2€ Döner down the hole after a cheap flight from Clyde, NY, 14433? Shakespeare im Park Berlin* is looking to pump up your ETB Expat Month with its kale-spiced week of 10-minute performances – bringing Strength and Health to the month of March!

Five new pieces have been selected to form one closed-circuit loop of teeth grinding, bone bending, flat out hoofing-it through 15 cherry nooks and crannies of tender proscenium-sirloin and leaky backstage-gut. This is no Schabernack! Just as Frederick the Great dunked strapping young Dutchmen into his mud-swamped Prussian backwater to erect a delightful Baroque period French knockoff and characterized it “Frederician Rococo,” English Theatre Berlin is bringing in big, bulging guns for its fourth annual Ten-Minute Play Competition:

10MP_Strength&Health March_WEB The winners were:

Symphony of Everyday Life by Claire Delaby & Alberto Di Gennaro / Culture by Emal Ghamsharick / Physical Exercises by Marie Hoffmann / Fluffers by Harvey Rabbit / Lass die Nutten tanzen by Antoine Hummel & Jacques Pradillon.

So put down the pot-stickers and hoist up your dumbbells for seven evenings of performance, all of which look even better in the buck.

* Shakespeare im Park Berlin is a multi-lingual, site-specific performance ensemble, founded in 2010.

Our Hands

Erman Jones (Berlin)

An autobiographical one-man show that explores the miraculous and disastrous consequences of the choices we have a hand in making.

Redefining our understanding of a brother’s legacy and a father’s responsibility, Erman Jones dramatizes the unique relationships that exist within his large Mormon family, set against the backdrop of a small rural Idaho town. Jones brings his storytelling to new heights as he weaves characters in and out of the events that filled his life from childhood through adolescence.

Our Hands is well-balanced and, as in life, takes you through the motions of happiness, melancholy, loss and plain silliness” Oakland Press

Hotel Methuselah

imitating the dog (UK)

A contemporary ghost story that explores our fears around mortality, sexuality and the terrifying sense of responsibility that comes with having children.

A visual masterpiece of contemporary British theatre – in Germany for the first time, exclusively at English Theatre Berlin

Hotel Methuselah is In a stunning homage to post-war British cinema and the French Nouvelle Vague, imitating the dog create a unique and disturbingly immersive experience for the audience.

Telling the story of night porter Harry’s search to uncover the forgotten truth of his past, Hotel Methuselah is a searing tale of the destructive power of love and the hell of personal disintegration. Fusing spectacular live action and video projection, this is stylish, cutting edge visual performance that places narrative, emotion and wit at its core.

“…unlike any other piece of theatre you’re likely to have experienced before…intriguing, a successful narrative experiment and a piece of art in its own right.” Yorkshire Evening Post

“a company at the forefront of testing the nature of theatre” – The Guardian

supported by

to die for

tacheles productions (Berlin)

“Today is a consequential occasion, and consequential occasions need witnesses.”

So says Ariana Krankovic- the fiercely unconventional lady, who has come to Berlin on a special mission. She’s not exactly a social butterfly, but she’s invited YOU to her birthday party- if you dare! To mark this momentous occasion Ariana Krankovic will perform the lethal Encanta’s Aria– a piece of music so beautiful that singing it stops the singer’s heart.

Will she go through with it? If so, will she survive to tell the tale? What binds her to this extraordinary aria? Before she can find out, there are ghosts from the Krankovic family tree that must be laid to rest.

This highly comic and touchingly magical one-woman show fuses naturalism and live music to explore the power of the stories we tell that shape our lives…and deaths.

Following rave reviews, including four stars in Irish Theatre Magazine, and successful performances in Dublin and Prague, Ariana Krankovic now comes to the heart of Berlin to captivate audiences once again.

This is one birthday party not to be missed!

Bridge Markland: faust in the box

faust_in_the_box Johann Wolfgang Goethe’s Faust as a one-woman-show featuring hand puppets and pop music. With an intense physicality, Bridge Markland performs high speed changes between Mephisto, Faust and Margarete/Gretchen using the puppets as her opponents. She acts to a sound collage made up of the text of the play and popular music from different generations.

“… With almost demonic facial twitches and contortions, she paints a Joker-like, mad… world, changing between the three characters of Faust, Mephistopheles and Gretchen …” BBC Scotland

“… it works so well I became fascinated to see and hear just what was about to happen next. … It is superbly performed and very very cleverly written and designed …”
www.one4review.co.uk

“… The parallels between the well known text and it’s translation into pop songs of the past four decades are impressive and funny at the same time. Bridge Markland walks on the rather narrow edge between modern debate and persiflage. When Margaret recognises at the end that she is on AC/DCs “Highway to hell”, this borderline finally becomes blurred in a great and new attempt to interpret the classic for many generations. This comprehensive attempt was successful. “ Mannheimer Morgen

Bridge Markland, the Berlin dance-theatre performance artist, is a virtuoso in role-play and transformation. An artist who effortlessly crosses the boundaries between sub- and high culture, between dance, theatre, performance, children’s – and puppet-theater.

faust in the box saw several successful international tours over the years

Photo: Dirk Holtkamp-Endemann

ACILE IN WNOEDRLNAD

ENGLISH COMMUNITY THEATRE

presents 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

loosely 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 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.