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Berlin International Performing Arts Center

Blog Archive

Rumors in the Shadows

Berlin International Youth Theatre takes a trip to the castle of Henry VIII in the year 1535, where the power of rumor can cost you your head.

In this era of the internet, it’s hard to believe that we are as just easily manipulated as we were centuries ago. Drowning in a sea of misinformation while the one percent call the shots.

Our story: While the sneaky servant observes everything, the king’s trusted page is sent to spread fake news to incriminate Queen Anne Boleyn. Her loyal fans don’t believe it and try to stop the rumors. Other rumors are circulating as well, the ladies-in-waiting are running scared, everyone knows King Henry is a sexual predator but no one dares to do anything about it. Still more rumors are spreading which question the king’s sanity. We all know how this ends for the queen but how does it end for the pawns?

Second Class Queer

Actor and writer Kumar Muniandy questions his identity, queerness, internalized homophobia and experiences of racism with his play. In the midst of these terms and their politics, Kumar seeks his own truth.

Is it possible to live as a brown gay man in Germany and find healing while carrying the weight of oppression from his motherland? Set in a speed-dating event, will Kumar’s leading man, Krishna, win the role he wants in this audition for love?

Through the lens of his experience as a Tamil-Malaysian queer person living in Berlin, Kumar Muniandy has developed a theater piece that investigates the connections between internalized homophobia that stems from anti-homosexuality laws of the colonial era and the structural racism he experiences.

What are the consequences of such merciless neocolonialism for the mental health of queer minorities living in Germany today? After all, Krishna, like Kumar, is on a pursuit of forgiveness and self acceptance.

Second Class Queer is dedicated to Nhaveen.

Following a work-in-progress presentation as part of the 2022 Expo Festival, we are thrilled to offer additional performance of the finished version of this production.

The Berlin Diaries

The great-grandfather of Oregon Book Award-winning playwright Andrea Stolowitz kept a journal for his descendants after escaping to New York City in 1939 as a German Jew.

Following the complicated lure of genealogy, Stolowitz goes back to Berlin to bring the story of her unknown ancestors out of the archives into the light. The record keeps as many secrets as it shares; how do people become verschollen, lost, like library books?

A limited number of free tickets have been reserved for secondary school student groups and their teachers. Please register as soon as possible by email at tickets@etberlin.de

This production is part of the 2023 Berlin Performing Arts Festival, May 31 to June 3, 2023 | paf.berlin

 

 

 

 

 

Complete funding for this production and the 2022 performances was generously provided by the U.S. Embassy in Berlin.

 

 

 

These additional performances in 2023 have been made possible thank to the Wiederaufnahmeförderung program of Fonds Darstellende Künste

 

 

 

Andrea Stolowitz is a German/American playwright currently living and working in Cork, Ireland. Her work embraces bold theatricality ranging from intimate portrayals of the human condition to the intersection of national history on private lives. Andrea is a member of New Dramatists class of 2026, an alumna of The Playwrights’ Center, and a collaborating writer with the internationally lauded devised theater company Hand2Mouth Theatre. Andrea is the Lacroute Playwright-in-Residence at Artists Repertory Theater. Andrea has taught at Duke University, NYU, UC-San Diego, Willamette University and NUI-Galway.

Voicemails for Sue

What price is worth paying in pursuit of a dream?
And at what point does that dream become a nightmare?
A struggling musician bets everything on a myth.
Until all he can do is run.

The Panel

The Panel is a talk show in the form of a staged reading in which five unique personalities engage in a heated, polarizing and humorous discussion about political conditions of the world.

These five guests turn a common and civilized conversation into the most unsuccessful debate in history.

Second Class Queer

Actor and writer Kumar Muniandy questions his identity, queerness, internalized homophobia and experiences of racism with his play. In the midst of these terms and their politics, Kumar seeks his own truth.

Is it possible to live as a brown gay man in Germany and find healing while carrying the weight of oppression from his motherland? Set in a speed-dating event, will Kumar’s leading man, Krishna, win the role he wants in this audition for love?

Through the lens of his experience as a Tamil-Malaysian queer person living in Berlin, Kumar Muniandy is developing a theater piece that investigates the connections between internalized homophobia that stems from anti-homosexuality laws of the colonial era and the structural racism he experiences.

What are the consequences of such merciless neocolonialism for the mental health of queer minorities living in Germany today? After all, Krishna, like Kumar, is on a pursuit of forgiveness and self acceptance.

Second Class Queer is dedicated to Nhaveen.

The Theory of Waiting

by Berlin International Youth Theatre

Loosely based on Samuel Beckett´s Waiting for Godot and inspired by the deep frustrations experienced in the time of the pandemic, BIYT presents an investigation into the perplexing questions that will just not go away.

You know the story, two friends wait endlessly for something. They try to do things right. They really do. But it´s just taking too darn long and soon trouble arrives offering a welcome distraction. We have all been there…

 

 

The Berlin Diaries

The great-grandfather of Oregon Book Award-winning playwright Andrea Stolowitz kept a journal for his descendants after escaping to New York City in 1939 as a German Jew.

Following the complicated lure of genealogy, Stolowitz goes back to Berlin to bring the story of her unknown ancestors out of the archives into the light. The record keeps as many secrets as it shares; how do people become verschollen, lost, like library books?

A limited number of free tickets have been reserved for student groups and their teachers. Please register as soon as possible by email at tickets@etberlin.de

 

Complete funding for this production has been generously provided by the U.S. Embassy in Berlin.

 

 

Andrea Stolowitz is a German/American playwright currently living and working in Cork, Ireland. Her work embraces bold theatricality ranging from intimate portrayals of the human condition to the intersection of national history on private lives. Andrea is a member of New Dramatists class of 2026, an alumna of The Playwrights’ Center, and a collaborating writer with the internationally lauded devised theater company Hand2Mouth Theatre. Andrea is the Lacroute Playwright-in-Residence at Artists Repertory Theater. Andrea has taught at Duke University, NYU, UC-San Diego, Willamette University and NUI-Galway.

White Heat

A revealed identity leads to an impossible decision.

Journalist Alice Kennings grapples with how to act after uncovering the identity of an alt-right podcast host calling for violence against the media.

Based on real events, White Heat is a play about all the things we justify to ourselves.

“In White Heat, Isador explores the continuum between trolls who target writers on the internet – especially women and people of colour – and true-life terror, such as the mass shooting at The Capital newspaper in Maryland in 2018 that left five journalists dead.”  The Globe and Mail

FOCUS CANADA 2022

Graham Isador

Graham Isador is a writer based in Toronto. Best known for his time as a host and editor with VICE, Isador’s writing has appeared in GQ, Men’s Health, and The Globe and Mail. He is the author of several plays including Situational Anarchy and TRUCK.

 

Jill Harper

Jill is an award-winning theatre director and dramaturg, and the co-founder of Cue6 Theatre. Selected directing credits: Cue6 Theatre’s Dry Land (Globe and Mail’s Top 10 Theatre shows of 2018); pool (no water) (Dora Awards for Outstanding Direction and Outstanding Performance – Ensemble); and Byhalia, Mississippi (as a part of a 7-city World Premiere Conversation). Elsewhere – White Heat (Summerworks Festival); Consumption Patterns (Next Stage Theatre Festival); Meet Cute (Roseneath Theatre) – Dora nomination for Outstanding Direction with co-director Aaron Willis – Hazardous Materials (Equity Library Theatre Chicago); Twelfth Night and Macbeth (The Classical Theatre Project).

 

Cool Aid

a cover version of the greatest comedy ever

Katherine and Audrey rent out a garden apartment. Only to artists, though. This has earned them a very impressive art collection. They love art, galleries, openings. Their brother, who thinks he’s Erich Honecker, will probably have to go to an institution because he won’t leave his room anymore. He will be greatly missed, because he buries the corpses in the cellar when his sisters have poisoned another one of those sad characters – There is nothing sadder than failed artists.

Katherine: “It was so sad to see a young artist die. And then we came to the conclusion that there really is nothing sadder in this world than an artist who suffers from a lack of success, who goes nowhere with all their ambitions but down the drain”
Audrey: “And we thought it would be better they didn´t have to live through all that pain and misunderstanding and pain again. So we helped them.”

Then her nephew Max shows up with Dr. Graveline. They are on the run and have the body from their last murder with them in the trunk. The burial ground in the basement comes in handy. Things get complicated ….

Cool Aid is a lurid farce about the dangerous edges of the contemporary art business, where the abyss is always lurking and only those who “make it” are immune from the crash.

Audrey: The last sad batch of Minimalism.
Katherine: Imitators only.
Audrey: A bunch of fucking wankers.

Cool Aid is a contemporary cover version of the best of all comedies, Arsenic and Old Lace from 1941.