STATE OF EMERGENCY IN DÜSSELDORF!

GIMME SHELTER

A German/US Theater Festival for People in Need of Protection

By German Theater Abroad

In Cooperation With the

Autorenlabor (Playwright’s Lab) of the Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus

June 19 - 22, 2008

ALTE PAKETPOST, Worringerstr. 140 – (next to the central train station)
 

GIMME SHELTER – a wish, a need, a must?

We are setting up a temporary shelter for new plays, young playwrights and unusual discourse in the old Paketpost. The SHELTER is both a performance venue and a full program: Set up within the construction site of the new production facilities of the Schauspielhaus, the shelter offers space for a jam packed, four day festival. The SHELTER BAR, complete with field kitchen, is open between and after the various festival events. Here you can supply yourself with the essentials, enter into conversations and celebrate life.

FESTIVAL SCHEDULE

WE ARE NOT THESE HANDS by Sheila Callaghan

German premiere, in English with German subtitles, produced at the Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus with US artists. Directed by Daniel Fish (New York) // Stage Designer: Frank-Tilmann Otto // Costume Designer: Kati Kolb // Video: Kai Gussek // Dramaturg: Dagmar Domrös // With Lisa Joyce, Suzy Jane Hunt and Michael Rudko

The school blew up last week, a banana is pure luxury and the only entertainment is porno in the internet cafe. All hope for teenagers Belly and Moth rest on the other side of the river, the side that Leather comes from; an underdog with a mother fixation, starved for tenderness.  Moth gives herself to Leather, just like she saw how to do on the internet and Belly, seeing her plans for escape endangered, comes up with a risky plan.

Sheila Callaghan is an extraordinary talent from the new generation of US playwrights and has been awarded numerous prizes. GTA presented her play Dead City at the House of World Cultures in Berlin in 2007.

ZWEI BRÜDER DREI AUGEN The world premiere of Nora Mansmann’s prize winning play from the 2007 Autorenlabor. Directed by Christian Doll // Stage Design: Jan-Alexander Schroeder // Costume Design: Kati Kolb // Dramaturg: Andrea Zimmermann // With Denis Geyersbach, Marianne Hoika, Anne Knaak, Ilja Niederkirchner, Janina Sachau, Michael Schütz and Susanne Tremper

Frotzi, a hermaphrodite, realizes ever more frequently that her
sex is gone. Wowa, her spaced out brother, has apocalyptic visions through his third eye. They both live with Grandma, 
who is in a partial coma. Wowa is not excited when Frotzi falls
in love with Nobbi, a werewolf, whose boil turns out to be a 
singing tumor named Stalin.  And Dr. Foxy, the brother’s 
therapist, looks to take over the world with the help of the great tumor. The world mutates, and all living things with it. 
Grandma’s house turns out to be the last bastion of middle 
class order as everything prepares for the apocalypse.

AUTORENLABOR (PLAYWRIGHT’S LAB) OF THE DÜSSELDORFER SCHAUSPIELHAUS

The plays from the second generation of the Autorenlabor will be presented as reading with actors from the ensemble. The playwrights will be introduced at the post-performance discussions following each of the readings. The audience helps to vote on the prize winning play, which will receive its world premiere at the Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus in 2009.

NEW AMERICAN VOICES  -- READY FOR CHANGE? We’re presenting three extraordinary plays from the next generation of US playwrights as stage readings, in German translation for the first time.

 WHITE PEOPLE by J.T. Rogers

Directed by Ronald Marx

What does it mean to be a white person in the United States today? WHITE PEOPLE is a controversially discussed, darkly comic piece about three very normal Americans: Martin, an attorney managing a law firm in St. Louis, Missouri; Mara Lynn, a housewife and former homecoming queen in Fayetteville, North Carolina and Alan, a young professor in New York City. A brutally honest meditation on the significance of race and language.

THE LITTLE DOG LAUGHED by Douglas Carter Beane

Directed by Samira Radsi

GOD’S EAR by Jenny Schwartz

Directed by Susanne Chrudina

Married couple Mel and Ted have lost their son. Everything that used to be has fallen to pieces: Mel, on the edge of a nervous breakdown, tries to keep making it through everyday life. Ted feels alienated from his wife and loses himself in work. Their six year old daughter, Lanie, lets herself be taken away to strange new worlds by the tooth fairy and the action figure G.I. Joe. GOD’s EAR finds an usually lyrical form for an unfathomable life in a state of uncertainty.

A TALK ABOUT PLAYWRIGHTS

Do playwrights need shelters? GTA and the Autorenlabor will discuss support, traditions and vision of new drama with theater experts and playwrights from Germany and the United States of America. What tendencies define contemporary drama? How does play development work? What support do playwrights want? With: Frank Kroll (henschel Verlag, Berlin), Sarah Hart (Editor, "American Theatre" Magazin), Nora Mansmann (playwright, Germany), J.T. Rogers (Playwright, USA). Moderation: Thomas Jonigk (Director, Autorenlabor) and Birgit Lengers (Dramaturg, GTA).

TALKING TABLES – 2 Course Discourse

A culinary symposium in two courses: We’re going to invite small groups of selected speakers to the table for first class dishes and big questions. The art of survival. We search for shelter when we feel threatened and vulnerable. We try to make precautions, build shelters, seek cover and flee from danger. Whoever is seeking shelter, however, gives up freedom. Protective measures draw boundaries and create limitations. And shelter is used as an argument, as an excuse and as a promise.

The following speakers, among others, have been invited: Udo Dziersk (Artist and Professor, Kunstakademie Düsseldorf),  Carl Hegemann (Philosopher and Professor of Dramaturgy, Leipzig Academy of Music and Theater "Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy"), Sarah Hart (Editor, "American Theatre" Magazin, NYC), Parzival (Conceptual Artist and Gallery Owner of artclub, Cologne) and Dirk Sauerborn (Police Commissioner, "Intercultural Affairs", Dusseldorf).

GIMME SHELTER by GTA: Artistic Director, Producer: Ronald Marx // // Design: Frank Tilmann Otto // Co-Producer: Dagmar Domrös // New American Voices: Matthias Herzfeld // Talking Tables: Birgit Lengers // Production Management: Eva-Karen Tittmann // Autorenlabor: Thomas Jonigk

GERMAN THEATER ABROAD has been producing theater festivals, productions and staged readings in Germany and the United States since 1996: contemporary, transatlantic and in search of real discussion. After PLAYSTATION (with the Düsseldorf Schauspielhaus, 2001) and the RED EYE SERIES (at the FFT 2003/04) GTA is back in Düsseldorf! For more information, please visit: www.g-t-a.de

TICKETS
WE ARE NOT THESE HANDS / ZWEI BRÜDER DREI AUGEN (Premiere € 20.00, other performances € 15.00/7.00) TALKING TABLES including meal € 18.00
Other Events: FREE ADMISSION

Ticket Hotline: 0211-369911
karten@duesseldorfer-schauspielhaus.de
www.duesseldorfer-schauspielhaus.de

Box Office: Opens half an hour prior to the event in the Alten Paketpost, Worringerstr. 140, next to the central train station

Gimme Shelter
Düsseldorf, in cooperation with the Schauspielhaus, 2008

Berlin - New York - Tel Aviv
2008/2009