The “Theatre in Dialogue” project, co-funded by the Romanian Cultural Fund Administration (AFCN) and implemented by the German State Theatre Timișoara (GSTT), continued on September 13 with a marathon of readings of theatre texts written by teenagers as part of the playwriting laboratory. The event brought together almost 100 students from Timișoara, Reșița, Arad, and Târgu Mureș, offering participants the opportunity to present their creations to an audience in a context dedicated to dialogue between young people, theatre, and education.
The marathon was coordinated by Alexandru Mihăescu and Vlad Dragomirescu and represented an important moment in the project, bringing the 11 texts developed during the playwriting workshops before an audience. The large turnout and active involvement of the students contributed to the success of the event, confirming their interest in forms of artistic expression that reflect their own experiences and concerns. The 11 texts were performed as staged readings by the artistic ensemble of GSTT.
During the first stage of the project, the playwriting laboratory involved more than 100 teenagers, who worked under the guidance of playwrights and artists Matei Grunberg, Sever Andrei, Elise Wilk, Maria Manolescu, Thomas Perle, Andrei Dinu, Andrei Radu, Cristian Vicol, Ovidiu Zimcea, Vlad Dragomirescu, and Laurențiu Blaga. The workshops resulted in 11 short theatre texts, exploring themes relevant to the younger generation – teenage life, school dynamics, relationships with authority, interpersonal relationships, and the everyday experiences of adolescents.
“Today’s experience at the German State Theatre was absolutely amazing. I was very happy to hear the scene I wrote performed on stage. I laughed a lot, especially since I wrote most of the jokes in the scene, and I was also really happy to hear the texts written by the other students. I noticed many similarities between the texts we wrote and those written by the other students,” said one of the students from “Carmen Sylva” National Pedagogical College in Timișoara, who took part in the project.
The activities were carried out with the support of the project’s partner educational institutions: “Nikolaus Lenau” Theoretical High School Timișoara, “Grigore Moisil” Theoretical High School Timișoara, “William Shakespeare” Theoretical High School Timișoara, Babel High School Timișoara, “Carmen Sylva” National Pedagogical College Timișoara, “David Voniga” Theoretical High School Giroc, “Diaconovici-Tietz” National College Reșița, “Adam Müller-Guttenbrunn” Theoretical High School Arad, National College of Arts Târgu Mureș, and “Nestor Oprean” Secondary School Sânnicolau Mare.
The reading marathon also marks the transition of the project into a new stage. “Theatre in Dialogue” continues this autumn with the staging of two of the texts developed during the playwriting laboratory: “+-82 kg” and “Sasa & Enzo”, coordinated by Laurențiu Blaga and Elise Wilk, respectively. The two texts will be transformed into performances created for theatre classes, thus continuing the journey of these works from the writing and public reading stages to their encounter with audiences in the form of fully developed performances.
Through this new stage, the project further strengthens its commitment to bringing theatre closer to young audiences and creating authentic contexts for encounters between theatre, education, and the community, giving teenagers the opportunity not only to participate in artistic creation processes, but also to become active spectators of performances inspired by the realities and concerns of their own generation.
The “Theatre in Dialogue” project is co-financed by the Romanian Cultural Fund Administration (AFCN) and implemented by the German State Theatre Timișoara.
