Institutions, Stages, Festivals

Theatre draws life from the work of actors and directors, from costume design – and above all from the text. Hundreds of new texts are created each year in Germany – but how do they find their audience?

When May comes each year, the writers take their plays to market. What does this mean? With repertory companies that stage approximately 20 productions each season, Germany’s subsidised state and municipal theatres have a great hunger for new plays.

They therefore represent a market for dramatists writing in all languages, above all of course, those working in German. The market is supplied by many theatrical publishers and agencies, which import foreign-language plays, discover pieces written in German, develop them and market them to the theatres. The richness and diversity of work on offer must be unique in the world.

However, 20 or 30 years ago this supply, above all the German-language plays, was very poorly regarded by the theatres. They trusted more in the classics or international successes than unknown young authors. In the mid-1970s, this led to the idea of the “Stückemärkte” (play markets), where brand-new plays were presented at staged readings. Actors read part or all of a text without stage directions, costumes or sets, so giving them a first “try out”. The aim is to inform the public about new trends in drama, to convince theatre professionals of the stage potential of previously unproduced dramatic texts and encourage critics to state their first opinions, in short: to get people interested in producing these plays “for real”. Over the years, a whole series of such initiatives have developed, the longest lasting in Berlin, Heidelberg, Hamburg and the most recent in Munich. And there is even a proper festival of new German drama, the stücke Festival during the Mülheim Theatertage. Two festivals are particularly committed to international plays at German theatres: the Biennale Wiesbaden festival New plays from Europe and the Schaubühnen festival F.I.N.D. in Berlin.

The Berlin Stückemarkt was the prototype for the play markets. Founded in 1978 and directed by Yvonne Büdenhölzer since 2005, the Stückemarkt is held during the Berlin Theatertreffen as part of the Berlin Festspiele. The Theatertreffen is the most important festival of German-language theatre, bringing together the most impressive productions of the year and mainly showcasing interpretations of the classics by star directors. In contrast, the Stückemarkt is a forum for the new dramatic texts that will shape the theatre of tomorrow. The goal of the Stückemarkt is to discover new plays for theatre, and to promote playwrights in the long term. For 30 years, the Stückemarkt has served as a career springboard for hitherto unknown playwrights. Since 2003, in cooperation with the Goethe Institute, the Stückemarkt has also presented up-and-coming European writers. The Stückemarkt events – staged readings, discussions with writers and theatre experts, presentation of the drama workshop and award ceremonies – also provide a marketplace for dramatists, publishing editors, theatre-makers and critics. A jury of renowned theatrical artists selects ten authors from around 500 European submissions: during the Theatertreffen, five texts are then presented in staged readings, set up by well-known directors and dramatic advisers with the help of the playwrights themselves. A further five writers are invited to participate in a drama workshop with John von Düffel. The call for entries starts in October every year. Two prizes are awarded, both donated by the Federal Agency for Civic Education: the Promotion Award for New Drama of the tt Stückemarkt is endowed with €5000 and requires the play in question to be premiered at the Maxim Gorki Theatre in Berlin. The tt Stückemarkt Commission, which is worth €7000, involves a premiere at another renowned theatre. One thing that is new in 2008 is that one of the ten selected plays is adapted by Deutschlandradio Kultur as a radio play and aired for the first time.

Although the Heidelberg Stückemarkt has been in existence for 25 years, the Young Authors’ Forum did not really get going until 1986, when Volkmar Clauß, the managing director of the Heidelberger Theater, and the Frankfurt-based Autorenstiftung (Authors’ Foundation) expanded the Stückemarkt by establishing an authors’ competition (including a prize!). The Heidelberg Theater opens the Stückemarkt with the first performance of one of the plays from the previous year’s competition, and the other dramas usually find a theatre prepared to premiere them as well. In 2001, the then managing director Günther Beelitz expanded the Stückemarkt yet again, adding a European section that presents new drama from a different guest country each year. To date, Italy, France and Russia have been featured amongst others. This year’s guest county will be Croatia. A series of guest performances complements the programme, which is concentrated in the narrow streets of the old university town and provides an opportunity for many stimulating discussions. Of course, there are prizes to be won in Heidelberg as well.

By comparison, the Autorentheatertage organised by Ulrich Khuon at the Schauspiel Hannover while he was managing director there from 1995 to 2000 and at the Thalia Theater in Hamburg since 2001, is more of a working event in an urban setting: one juror, usually a critic, calls for the submission of dramatic texts and narrows down the hundreds of plays submitted to a small selection, which the theatre presents after a two-week rehearsal period at a Long Night of the Authors. It is already possible to tell what potential a theatre text has for the stage during this workshop phase. And of course, it is also particularly important for the author, who can see for the first time whether, and how, his or her play functions.

Since 2003, the Münchner Kammerspiele have been organising the Wochenende der jungen Dramatiker (i. e. Weekend for young playwrights) that takes place every year in November. The event includes staged readings and theatrical readings of new texts as well as readings of renowned playwrights.

The Mülheim Theatertage is presenting new drama under the title Stücke. The Stücke Festival has been running since 1976 and represents the dramatic harvest of a whole year: a selection committee judges the roughly 130 German-language dramas premiered each season to pick the best and most interesting eight, which are usually performed at Mülheim in their original productions. Another jury chooses the winner of the Mülheim Dramatists’ Award from this selection. This is now probably the most prestigious honour for dramatists writing in German. The list of award winners is impressive, though not entirely flawless. Nevertheless, the list of award winners and plays selected in the past can be seen as a seismogram of German-language drama that records developments and tendencies in the field over the last 31 years. Aside from the Berlin Theatertreffen, the Stücke Festival is the highpoint of the German theatrical year and has now gained an international profile. With its discussions, accompanying programmes, translators’ meetings, and the reimport of German-language plays produced abroad, it is not just the most important forum for German-language dramatists year after year, but also the most impressive advertisement for new drama in Germany. It became indispensable to the German theatre and its audience long ago.