The festival Ein Stück: Tschechien presents:
Staged reading of Natálie Bočková’s play with water orchestra, followed by a book presentation and discussion
Wednesday, November 18, 2026, at 7:00 p.m.
Theater unterm Dach Berlin
Interkulturelles Haus
Schönfließer Straße 7
10439 Berlin
Admission: €10 | Reduced: €5 | Buy tickets here
The festival Ein Stück: Tschechien, organized by Drama Panorama e. V., is a platform for contemporary Czech theater and has been held in Berlin since 2014.
This October, nine plays that were presented at the “Ein Stück: Tschechien” festival in recent years were published in the anthology Am Wannenrand. Contemporary Czech Drama. Berlin: Neofelis, 2026, edited by Barbora Schnelle. This book, which brings together plays from several festival years, will be presented in Berlin at a festive launch event, combined with a staged reading of the title play Am Wannenrand by the young Czech author Natálie Bočková.
Eberhard Köhler and Danila Korogodsky stage this reading performance, among other elements, with a water orchester with Theo Schnelle, Nicolas Kammer and NN.
Programme
Natálie Bočková: Am Wannenrand (On the Edge of the Tub)
Translated from Czech by Maira Neubert
The play is a sarcastic study of the failed relationship between Sofie and Thomas. It is the story of an aspiring director and a food delivery driver, deliberately framed as a clash between two ways of life that exposes social divides, classism, and artistic mannerism. Through laconic dialogue with subtle undertones, the author constructs a complex portrait of an on-again, off-again relationship within a very limited scope. The play received the 2022 Evald Schorm Prize.
Director: Eberhard Köhler
Set Design: Danila Korogodsky
Dramaturgy: Barbora Schnelle, Henning Bochert
Cast: Thea Rasche and Henning Bochert
Live musicians: Theo Schnelle, Nicolas Kammer, NN
Featuring a Q&A with the author and a book presentation of the newly published anthology of contemporary Czech drama, Am Wannenrand (Berlin: Neofelis, 2026), edited by Barbora Schnelle as part of the Drama Panorama series.
Natálie Bočková (*2001) studied stage directing and dramaturgy at the Janáček Academy for Music and Performing Arts in Brno and then acquired her master in Bohemian studies at the Masaryk University. She is currently the director of the TÁNÍ ensemble focussing on site-specific projects. In 2023, her play O vedlejších postavách won her second place in a competition organised by the Václav Havel Library Foundation. In 2022, her texts Úsměvy šťastných lidí and Na okraji vany (engl. On the Edge of the Tub) won third place in the competition for the Evald Schorm Award, where, in 2023, her play Tolik něhy won first price. And in 2024, her play Hledat Robinsona (engl. Looking for Robinson, premiered 2025) won third price.
Photo: privat
Maira Neubert is studying Slavic Studies at Humboldt University in Berlin, focussing on contemporary Czech drama. In 2023, she participated in Drama Panorama’s mentoring programme for aspiring translators and began by translating Sorex by Tomáš Ráliš for the “New Translations of International Drama” festival organized by Drama Panorama. In 2025, her translation of Sorex received an award from the German-speaking committee of Eurodram. That same year, she also translated Am Wannenrand by Natálie Bočková for the “Ein Stück: Tschechien 2023” festival. At the same festival, her other translations of plays by Tomáš Ráliš were presented— Ausgewohnt in 2025 and Ophelia OnlyFans in 2026. Outside of the university, she works as a journalist for the television channel Deutsche Welle and the campus radio station CouchFM.
Photo: Maira Neubert
Eberhard Köhler studied directing at the Zurich Academy of Dramatic Arts. Since 1994, he has staged more than 100 productions as a freelance director both at home and abroad: in Switzerland, Austria, Luxembourg, the USA, Russia, South Korea, Sweden, Vietnam and Kyrgyzstan. In Berlin, he has directed at venues including the carrousel Theatre (now Theater an der Parkaue), the English Theatre Berlin, the Hebbel am Ufer, the Maxim Gorki Theatre, Tanz Tangente and the Theater unterm Dach. From 2005 to 2022, he was Associate Artistic Director of the Theatre of Generations (Teatr Pokoleniy) in St Petersburg. He teaches acting and directing at several universities and higher education institutions, including the Berlin University of the Arts (UdK Berlin), the University of Potsdam, Lingen University of Applied Sciences (Ems), the Braunschweig University of Art (HBK Braunschweig), the Saxony Theatre Academy in Delitzsch, and Høgskulen på Vestlandet in Bergen (Norway). His work has been recognised with several theatre awards, including the Kurt Nylander Prize in Sweden, a nomination for the Golden Mask longlist in Moscow, and an award at the NRW Theatre Festival. His most recent productions were Danila Korogodsky’s Visumfrei durch die Galaxis (Bishkek / Berlin 2025), William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Chur / Switzerland 2025) and Matthias Brandt’s Blackbird (Koblenz 2025) and Nino Haratischwili’s Penthesilea: A Requiem (Deutsches Staatstheater, Timișoara (Romania), 2025).
Foto: Elmar Engels
Danila Korogodsky graduated from the Leningrad Theatre Academy in 1977 as a set and costume designer. After graduating, she worked as a permanent designer at the Leningrad TYS (Theatre for Young Audiences) and for theatres across the country, designing more than 80 productions for various companies. In 1989, she was invited to design a show at the Honolulu Theatre for Youth. Since then, she has worked in the United States as a set designer and professor of design. He has designed more than 300 productions in the USA and around the world. From 1996 to 2019, he taught stage design at California State University, Long Beach, and, as a visiting lecturer, at the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, CA. In 2005, he became artistic director of the Pokoleniy Theatre in St Petersburg, Russia. By February 2022, he had conceived and directed more than 30 projects with his ensemble. Following the outbreak of the war with Ukraine, he left Russia and lives in Berlin today.
Photo: Andrey Suhinin
It is not just because the Czech Republic is the guest of honour at the Frankfurt Book Fair in 2026 that it is worth taking a look at our neighbouring country’s vibrant theatre scene. Through her publications and the Berlin festival Ein Stück: Tschechien, translator Barbora Schnelle has been introducing new Czech voices and plays to German-speaking theatre for many years. Now, with Am Wannenrand, she presents a new anthology of contemporary Czech drama. Nine plays, which premiered between 2012 and 2024, showcase the diverse trends and aesthetics of contemporary Czech drama, ranging from socially critical grotesques and relationship dramas inspired by the theatre of the absurd to lyrical, almost fairy-tale-like utopias. This selection brings to life the diversity of the theatrical techniques employed by the playwrights and the Czech theatre community.
For more information about the book, click here: https://neofelis-verlag.de/verlagsprogramm/literatur-theatertexte/theatertexte/1134/am-wannenrand
Organizer: Drama Panorama: Forum für Übersetzung und Theater e. V.
Artistic Direction and Production: Barbora Schnelle and Henning Bochert
Sponsored by the Governing Mayor of Berlin – Senate Chancellery. In collaboration with the Theater unterm Dach and the Czech Center Berlin.
