GTA TIMELINE

1996-2008 HISTORY AND PROJECTS

1996 German Theater Abroad Inc. (GTA) is founded as a non-profit organization in New York by Ronald Marx, Christian Kahrmann and Jarreth Merz. GTA is adopted by the New York Foundation for the Arts and gains not-for-profit status.

 1997 GTA produces its first English-language reading, Klaus Pohl's DIE SCHÖNE FREMDE (THE BEAUTIFUL STRANGER), directed by Glenn Paris at the Apex Art Gallery in Soho, New York.  The lead role is performed by Barbara Sukowa, recipient of the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival.

1998 GTA founds a daughter organization, German Theater Abroad e. V. (GTA e.V.), in Berlin to promote German-language theater in other countries. GTA produces the first season of the festival NEW GERMAN VOICES in New York.  GTA introduces seven contemporary German playwrights and their plays in US-English translation to a New York audience at the renowned Cherry Lane Theater. 

1999 GTA e.V. produces a benefit evening at Podewil in Berlin. A reading of Klaus Pohl's Wartesaal Deutschland (Waiting Room Germany) is presented with prominent actors under the title FÜR EINE HANDVOLL DOLLAR (FOR A HANDFUL OF DOLLARS). Donated art work is auctioned off at the end of the evening.  The proceeds are used to produced New German Voices 1999. NEW GERMAN VOICES 1999 is once again produced at the Cherry Lane Theater in New York. Six contemporary German plays are presented during the festival.

2000 German Theater Abroad Inc. produces Alexei Schipenko's play SUZUKI, which was presented as a reading during New German Voices 1998. SUZUKI is performed 18 times by German and US actors in New York City.

2001 GTA e.V. produces the four-day festival PLAYSTATION in collaboration with the Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus. Of the 13 plays presented, five are chosen by a German-US jury. These five will be presented at NEW GERMAN VOICES 2004 in New York. GTA e.V. establishes an office at Schröderstrasse in downtown Berlin which also serves as a performance space. The series TISCH UND WERK is presented every Thursday. An international theater library which is open to the public is created through the support of numerous theater publishing companies

2002 Over 60 plays are presented as staged readings to a Berlin audience at the Schröderstrasse space. TISCH UND WERK enjoys great popularity from both the audience and the press.

2003 The GTA-Shop opens on Schröderstrasse with a complete relaunch of the program including the Contemporary Performing Arts Library (CPAL) and a new series, TALKING TEXTS, operating under the theme NEW WEST. At the same time, GTA produces RED EYE SERIES 01, a festival of contemporary North American drama, at the Forum Freies Theater (FFT) in Düsseldorf.

2004 GTA continues its established reading series TALKING TEXTS in Berlin and returns to Düsseldorf in March with RED EYE SERIES 02, the next installment of the successful series from the previous year. NEW GERMAN VOICES 2004 (June 27th-July 1st, 2004), presented at one of Off Broadway’s most important and respected institutions, the Public Theater, proves to be a highlight in GTA’s 8-year creative career. The festival is highly praised on both sides of the Atlantic by critics and audience alike.

2005 The reading series TALKING TEXTS continues in Berlin and GTA prepares the project STADTTHEATER NEW YORK for 2006. In November and December, GTA presents a TALKING TEXTS SPECIAL:  Israel: 3 Plays, 1 Film. Three contemporary Israeli plays are presented as staged readings and Anna Faroqhi’s documentary film “House and Desert” is screened within this series.

2006 GTA installs STADTTHEATER NEW YORK at the HERE Arts Center in New York. In the month of May two full productions (Die Frau von früher / The Woman Before by Roland Schimmelpfennig and Bandscheibenvorfall / Slipped Disc by Ingrid Lausund) and NEW GERMAN VOICES 06, consisting of four staged readings, are presented, as well as the international symposium THE THEATER WE WANT!, consisting of three panels. The festival is an overwhelming critical and popular success, garnering rave reviews in
numerous periodicals, including the prestigious New York Times and a full length article in American Theatre, the definitive national theater magazine in the United States. In the summer, GTA presents the TALKING TEXTS SPECIAL:  New York Voices: New Plays from the City, a reading series of three contemporary US plays at Trailerpark Berlin.

2007 THE ROOF OF GREAT PROMISE – a site-specific reading series of contemporary North American drama for the 50^th anniversary of the Haus der Kulturen der Welt (The House of World Cultures), Berlin; ROAD THEATER – a tour from New York to Los Angeles through the flyover states with Start Up, a play commissioned from Roland Schimmelpfennig.  

2008 Projects currently being prepared: ROAD THEATER – COMING HOME: presentation of the play Start Up and the US-tour in three German cities (Berlin: Haus der Berliner Festspiele; at the Heidelberger Stückemarkt – new play festival; and at the Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus); GIMME SHELTER – a German-American festival for people in need of protection. In Düsseldorf in collaboration with the Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus.