Festival for New Czech Theatre in Berlin
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Programme:
Tuesday, 10 June 2025 | 7 pm | Theater unterm Dach
Festival opening and reception to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the city partnership between Berlin and Prague (open to anyone attending the performance afterwards by A studio Rubín)
With speeches by:
Georg Klußmann, Chief of Protocol of the Federal State of Berlin and of the Division for International Relations and Protocol
Zuzana Hocková, Head of the Department for International Relationships of the Magistrate of the Capital City of Prague
Tuesday, 10 June 2025 | 8 pm | Theater unterm Dach
Guest performance by A studio Rubín, Prague – Abgrund (engl. Abyss, orig. Propast), written by Dagmar Fričková, directed by Lucie Ferenzová
This play deals with the topical subject of the effects of the climate crisis on the younger generation. At first, it seems to be simply a romantic story about two strangers. But what happens with love when the birds disappear, the forest disappears, the air disappears? A dialogue about a future that is predictable, but unimaginable. About the abyss known as depression. About the search for someone other than oneself. And, of course, about love and hope.
Directed by: Lucie Ferenzová
Dramaturgy: Dagmar Fričová
Stage and costume design: Andrijana Trpković and Minna Liebhart
Visual performance: Michal Kindernay
Music: Rlung
Performed by: Jana Kozubková and Šimon Krupa
A coproduction between Kolonie, z.s. and A Studio Rubín.
Venue: Theater unterm Dach, Berlin
In Czech with live German interpretation (via headphones), followed by a post-show talk with the team.
The performance will take place in connection with the 30th anniversary of the twinning programme of the Cities of Berlin and Prague.
The A studio Rubín theatre is a small theatre stage near Malostranské náměstí (Small Side Square) in the medieval cellars of the U Tří korun (Three Crowns) building, whose beginnings date back to the 1967/68 season. During the period of Czechoslovak socialism, the basement stage was often the scene of subversive theatre performances and one of the centres of socially critical culture.
Under its current management, A studio Rubín continues to develop a progressive dramaturgy that focuses on authorial and documentary theatre in an innovative way. It actively promotes the creation of new theatre texts that deal with current social issues (platform ‘playwright-in-residence’), supports art students who can realise their first author projects here (RubínLab project) and, with its progressive and open approach, helps to bring young up-and-coming artists together with experienced professionals. Often taboo phenomena such as precarious work, work and motherhood, violence and its sexualised forms or climate anxiety are brought to the stage here in an audience-oriented, socially critical, humorous and dark pop style.
Foto: A studio Rubín
Dagmar Fričová (née Radová) is a dramaturge and author. She studied dramaturgy at the Janáček Academy of Music and Performing Arts in Brno. In the past, she worked as a dramaturge at the Moravian-Silesian National Theatre (Národním divadlo moravskoslezské), the HaDivadlo Theatre in Brno, and she worked for Czech Radio. Since 2017, she has been the author, dramaturge and artistic director of A studio Rubín. She conceives the studio stage as a playwright’s theatre with a focus on more intimate and seemingly everyday topics, which at the same time raise fundamental socio-political questions. For A studio Rubín, she has written texts such as Thelma a Selma (Engl. Thelma and Selma, premièred in 2018) and DIY: po tátovi (Engl. DIY: from Dad, premièred in 2020). In collaboration with the director Ondřej Štefaňák, she created the text Lonely horny only (première 2019) and with the director Jan Friče Burn out aneb Vyhoř! (Burn out or burn!, premièred in 2019). Her latest plays include Propast (Engl. Abyss, world premiere 2023) and Endemité: Příběhy mizení (Engl. Shore of Disappearance, world premiere 2024), written together with Matthias Naumann (Theater Futur II Konjunktiv) as a German-Czech theatre project (German premiere at Theater unterm Dach 2025).
Foto: Dita Havránková
Lucie Ferenzová is a director and dramaturge. Her first theatre performances took place in Most, in mines, tenement houses and industrial buildings as site-specific and immersive theatre performances. This was followed by literature studies at the Faculty of Philosophy at Charles University and directing at the Academy of Fine Arts Theatre in Prague, as well as her first work at the Prague Chamber Theatre (under the direction of Dušan David Pařízek) and at the Divadlo Na Zábradlí (Theatre at the Railings), where she worked as a dramaturge for four years. She directs, works as a dramaturge and also writes her own plays. With the Kolonie theatre, which she founded and which frequently collaborates with A studio Rubín, she mainly devotes herself to productions that she co-develops with the ensemble (e.g. Propast, Pravidla úklidu, or Endemité: příběhy mizení).
Foto: Dita Havránková
Sunday, June 29, 2025 | 8 pm | Theater unterm Dach
Staged readings of contemporary Czech plays by Tomáš Ráliš, Hana D. Lehečková and David Košťák (in German translation)
Tomáš Ráliš: Ausgewohnt (working title, orig. Vyhubyt, translated from Czech by Maira Neubert)
A grotesque reckoning with gentrification and the property market, and the dire housing situation for the young generation. The play received the Ewald Schorm Award in 2023.
Hana D. Lehečková: Trollmama (orig. Trollí matka, translated from Czech by Barbora Schnelle)
A dystopian play by a renowned prose writer dealing with how manipulative content spread on social media impacts the individual.
David Košťák: Die vergossene Milchstraße (working title, engl. Over the Spilt Milky Way, orig. Nad rozlitou mléčnou dráhou, translated from Czech by Martina Lisa)
A poetic play about the relationship between an immature father and an aging daughter who see that time has slipped through their fingers like stardust.
Staged readings (of abridged versions) followed by post-show talks with the playwrights and translators.
Readings directed by: Eberhard Köhler
Stage and costume design: Danila Korogodsky
Performed by: Thea Rasche, Hannah Ley, Niklas Brubach, Henning Bochert
Press release (in German) for download
Tomáš Ráliš (*1997) studied theatre directing at the Theatre Academy of Performing Arts (DAMU) in Prague. He has received numerous awards in the Czech Republic and internationally for his productions and plays. For example: first place three times in a row (2020-22) in the renowned drama competition ‘Ewald Schorm Prize’; in 2023, he took second place with Vyhubyt, which he staged in the same year at Studio Beseda in Hradec Králové; with the radio play version of his play Sleduj! (Follow!) about YouTubers and influencers won the student prize and third place in the drama category at the Prix Bohemia Radio 2023 radio play festival. Also in 2023, he was named ‘Talent of the Year 2023’ at the Czech Theatre Critics’ Awards. In 2025, the German-speaking commission of Eurodram selected this play for presentation at the playwrights’ festival in Graz and at the festival Stück für Stück in Mannheim. Drama Panorama presented his award-winning play Sorex in the translation by Maira Neubert for the first time at the New Translations of International Drama Festival in 2023.
Foto: Patrik Borecký
Hana D. Lehečková (*1990) is a Czech literary editor, writer and playwright. She studied theory and criticism at the Theatre Academy of Performing Arts (DAMU) in Prague. She made her debut as a playwright in 2012 when she won the Švandovo divadlo drama competition, which subsequently staged her play V(ý)chod. She has written radio plays such as Johana a továrna na sny (Engl. Johana and the Dream Factory) and Co se stalo se Zuzanou (Engl. What Happened to Susanne), among others. For her psychotic novel Svatá hlava (2019, published in German as Das heilige Haupt, translation Hana Hadas, Homunculus Verlag, 2022), she received the Jiří Orten Prize in 2020, a prestigious Czech prize for young authors under 30. She also became known for her autobiographical novel Poupátka (Engl. Buddings, 2021), which deals with child abuse in a theatre group. Lehečková also writes children’s books and works as a playwright with many independent theatres in the Czech Republic. Her play Trollí matka (Engl. Troll Mama) was created for Prague’s Divadlo Letí (première 2018).
Foto: Ondřej Dolejší
David Košťák (*1991) studied theory and criticism at the Theatre Academy of Performing Arts (DAMU) in Prague. He is artistic director of the Malé divadlo (Little Theatre) in South Bohemia and dramaturge of the independent Divadlo Letí (Letí Theatre) in Prague. As a dramaturge, he has also worked with the Švandovo divadlo (Švanda Theatre), the Divadlo Petra Bezruče (Petr Bezruče Theatre) and the drama and opera department of the Jihočeské divadlo (South Bohemian Theatre). His plays include post-dramatic texts such as Taxistyx, Srdce patří za mříže (Engl. The Heart Belongs Behind Bars), chamber music relationship dramas such as Nad rozlitou mléčnou dráhou (Engl. The Spilled Milky Way), Lajka vzhůru letí (Engl. Lajka Flies High), the radio western for teenagers Tahle země není pro mladý (Engl. No Country for Young People) and many more.
Foto: Hector Rodriguez
About the festival
Our theatre festival presents contemporary Czech productions as guest performances and staged readings of new plays by contemporary Czech playwrights, whose texts are translated into German for the festival.
There is a new generation of theatre-makers in the Czech Republic whose texts and productions are highly relevant across Europe and yet who are hardly known abroad. Drama Panorama: Forum für Translation and Theatre e. V., in collaboration with the Czech Centre Berlin and the Embassy of the Czech Republic in Berlin, seeks to close that gap with this festival.
The project aims to establish the regular presentation of contemporary Czech drama and theatre in Berlin, and in many respects, it has already accomplished this. The first Festival for New Czech Theatre took place in 2014 with considerable success; one of the plays presented (Bekenntnis eines Masochisten; engl. Confessions of a Masochist by Roman Sikora) was subsequently produced in Dortmund. Many other plays and playwrights were presented to the German public in the years that followed. In 2018, Neofelis Verlag Berlin and Drama Panorama e. V. published an anthology of contemporary Czech drama titled Von Masochisten und Mamma-Guerillas (Of Masochists and Mamma Guerillas; ed. by Barbora Schnelle), a collection of many of the plays that had been presented at the festival in German for the first time.
In 2021, another anthology with plays by one of the most important political Czech playwrights, Roman Sikora, was published (Frühstück mit Leviathan, Engl. Breakfast with Leviathan, Berlin: Neofelis 2021, ed. by Barbora Schnelle). Some of the translations in this book were commissioned specifically for our festival.
The pandemic strongly impacted our festival as guest performances from the Czech Republic were not possible. We were, however, able to present staged readings and also offered interactive online formats (Talks statt Gastspiele in collaboration with Ballhaus Ost in Berlin; available to watch on the Drama Panorama YouTube channel).
In 2023, we began to stage live events again, continued our work in this area and once again presented three plays newly translated into German as staged readings. We also invited two Czech theatre groups, who we had already wanted to bring to Berlin in 2020, to perform here.
We cooperate with the Theater unterm Dach and the English Theatre Berlin | International Performing Arts Center, and are always looking for new partner venues where we can present our guest performances from the Czech Republic.
Curator: Mgr. Barbora Schnelle, Ph.D.
Artistic directors and production management: Barbora Schnelle and Henning Bochert
Advisory Board
- Dr. Matteo Colombi, Bohemian studies expert and cultural studies scholar, research assistant at Leipzig University
- Dr. Jan Jiřík, theatre studies scholar, research assistant at the Charles University Prague
- doc. Mgr. David Drozd, Ph.D., theatre studies scholar, head of the theatre studies department at Masaryk University Brno
- Mgr. Karolína Stehlíkova, Ph.D., theatre studies scholar, research assistant at the theatre studies department at Masaryk University Brno
- Mgr. Hana Hložková, dramaturg at the National Theatre in Brno
PR: Augustin PR
Dr. Barbora Schnelle, born in Brno, Czech Republic, studied Theatre Studies and Aesthetics in Brno, Berlin and Vienna and attained her doctorate at the Theatre Studies Department of Masaryk University in Brno with a dissertation on Elfriede Jelinek’s plays. She has worked as a theatre studies scholar and university assistant in Brno and was co-founder of the Internet Theatre Journal of Yorick’s Objective Anger. She has mainly lived in Berlin since 2001 and works as a freelance theatre critic (especially for the Prague magazine Svet a divadlo), journalist and translator.
Photo: private
Henning Bochert lives in Berlin and is an author, translator for English and German, dramaturg and lecturer. After studying acting, he has run a translation agency for over 25 years, is involved with Drama Panorama: Forum für Übersetzung und Theater e. V., writes about theatre and literature, and translates film, theatre literature, prose and other genres, most recently Die Rose im Sand, stories by Susan Glaspell, published by Dörlemann Verlag. www.bochert.com and www.henningbochert.de.
Photo: Graham Hains
Alberto Afferni studied Slavic Studies at the Humboldt University in Berlin and has been working at the Schaubühne am Lehniner Platz in Berlin since the 2023/24 season. Before studying in Berlin, he studied Modern Philology at the Università Statale degli Studi di Torino. In his bachelor’s thesis, he translated poems by LGBTQI+ authors from Russian and German into Italian.
In 2022, he published his first article about contemporary Czech theater on novinki.de. He has been a production assistant at the festival Ein Stück: Tschechien since 2023.
Maira Neubert is a Slavic studies student at Humboldt University in Berlin and a prospective translator from Czech. Outside of university, she works as a journalist for the television channel Deutsche Welle and the campus radio station CouchFM.
For our festival panorama #3 in May 2023 she translated the play Sorex by Tomas Ralis. At Ein Stück: Tschechien 2023, her translation of Natálie Bočková’s Am Wannenrand (orig. Na okraji vany) will be presented. She is also an assistant to the festival’s production management.
Photo: private
Our thanks for years of support for the Ein Stück: Tschechien Festival goes to the following institutions:
Ein Stück: Tschechien, Festival for New Czech Theatre 2023 is a production by Drama Panorama: Forum für Übersetzung und Theater e. V. in cooperation with the Czech Centre Berlin and the Czech Embassy Berlin, supported by the German-Czech Future Fund, the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic with Plán národní obnovy programme, the Governing Mayor of Berlin – Senate Chancellery, the European Union (NextGenerationEU programme), the City of Prague, Prague City District 3, State Cultural Fund of the Czech Republic, Johan Centre and Venuše ve Švehlovce.
