Festival International New Drama
4 to 13 April

We are delighted to welcome you to the Festival International New Drama (FIND). From 4 to 13 April 2025, FIND will be showcasing contemporary theatre from the most varied corners of the world. The festival will include new texts and productions, plays under development and documentary projects.
At the same time renowned artists and until now unknown groups are invited. This year hailing from France, Belgium, Ireland, Spain, the USA and, in a first for the festival, from Kyrgyzstan.

You can read the FIND programme here.

ARTIST IN FOCUS

FIND is once more shining a spotlight on the work of a major theatre artist as this year’s Artist in Focus. This edition will be dedicated to the Franco-Vietnamese author and director Caroline Guiela Nguyen. Working in constant collaboration with the other artists in her company, »Les Hommes Approximatifs« (»Approximate People«), she uses her plays to tell stories that are at once personal and global. Caroline Guiela Nguyen had her international breakthrough with her production »SAIGON« (2017), a sweeping panorama about the rifts left behind the French colonial history in Vietnam and their families and relationships of love and friendship. This production was presented as part of FIND 2018, and introduced Guiela Nguyen to German audiences. Since then, it has travelled all around the world, and is now returning to FIND 2025 as part of the showcase. In addition, we will also be presenting Guiela Nguyen’s recent play, »LACRIMA«, in which the employees of an haute couture workshop in Paris, lacemakers in Normandy and a beadworker in Mumbai are all working on a wedding dress for the British royal family. The stories combine to create a continentspanning piece about the tears that have been poured into making this piece of clothing. And in an exclusive preview, we will also be showing Guiela Nguyen’s work, which will not be premiering until the end of April at the Théâtre national de Strasbourg: »Valentina«. The play tells the story of a girl called Valentina, who must translate painful messages from a doctor for her mother, who does not speak French, and thus finds herself facing a dilemma: should one tell the truth, when it will hurt the person receiving it? Guiela Nguyen will offer insights into her theatre practice in an artist talk.

INTERNATIONAL PANORAMA

What traces are left behind by social upheavals in our most intimate relationships? How do political conflicts force their way into our homes? And how can we talk about them? Many of the works that will be shown at FIND this year relate to this political exploration of the private. Milo Rau is returning to the Schaubühne with his production »Medea’s Children« from the NTGent. Starting from the harrowing, real criminal case of a five-time child murderer in Belgium and the ancient tragedy of Medea, in which a mother murders her own children, Rau’s production gives six children aged eight to thirteen a space to talk and reflect on the absurd and bloody tragedies of adults and their own (tragic) world. Can a reenactment of the most brutal acts lead to a better understanding of them?

Last year the 100th birthday of the great American writer James Baldwin was celebrated. In 1965, he took part in a debate with the conservative thinker William F. Buckley Junior. At the heart of their discussion was the question of whether the »American Dream« was achieved at the expense of the Black population in America – which the razor-sharp Baldwin argued was indeed the case. In »Baldwin and Buckley at Cambridge«, the New York-based theatre company »Elevator Repair Service« bring back to life of the exchange these two intellectuals had about racism and society.

A song cycle play from Ireland’s Abbey Theatre, »SAFE HOUSE«, by Irish playwright and director Enda Walsh and composer Anna Mullarkey, takes us to Galway, Ireland. Here, a young woman named Grace lives all alone in an abandoned handball court and confronts her past. A childhood overshadowed by alcohol, violence and loneliness. But perhaps this handball court is no ruin after all, but rather a construction site of memory – even if it is not as safe as the title promises.

With »Un sublime error«, Flemish playwright and director Jan Lauwers, a founding member of the famous »Needcompany«, has written a monologue specifically for the Argentinian-Spanish actor Gonzalo Cunill. On stage, the actor is surrounded by a fragile installation made out of glass.Gonzalo starts to tell us about his friendship with Alex and Christine. In doing so, he switches effortlessly between childish naivety and raw violence as he tries to understand himself, his friends and the fights that they have had with each other.

Walloon actor Cédric Eeckhout brings his own mother on stage for the production »Héritage«: Jo Libertiaux is 79 years old and has worked as a hairdresser all her life. She married at 19, had three children, built a house, loves travelling, consumerism and beautiful clothes, and at first glance does not appear to be an emancipatory heroine. And yet, by reconstructing her life, Eeckhout discovers a proud fighter in her. With his production, he makes a very personal declaration of love to her.

In Kirundi, »ICIRORI« means »looking into your own internal mirror, looking into the face of your history, in order to move forward«. The Walloon-Burundian actress CONSOLATE takes up this meaning for her play of the same name. When she was four years old, her parents were murdered during the civil war in Burundi. Consolate was brought to Belgium and adopted by a white family. She spent several years researching the topics of identity destruction and human trafficking in order to re-appropriate her own story in this production.

For the first time, FIND is presenting a work from the Central Asian republic of Kyrgyzstan. Based on interviews with people from Kyrgyz society, director Chagaldak Zamirbekov and his Ensemble developed the play »Уя« (»Nest«) and created an intimate and complex portrait of a society in transition. Each voice explores what the concept of home is. Or what it could be. Post-Soviet, nationalist and emancipatory narratives exist here simultaneously and have to endure each other.

NEW DRAMA AT THE SCHAUBÜHNE

In addition to the international guest performances, productions of new drama from the Schaubühne’s current repertoire can also be seen at this year’s FIND. Maja Zade’s production of her own play »spinne« with Caroline Peters is represented, as well as a a staged reading of the novel »Paradiesische Zustände« by Henri Maximilian Jakobs, arranged by Thomas Ostermeier and Elisa Leroy.

SUPPORTING PROGRAMME

We are once again looking forward to audience discussions with the artists participating in the festival. Carolin Emcke’s Streitraum series accompanies FIND by discussing international cultural exchange in times of austerity and political challenges. Last but not least, we invite you to our parties to celebrate together. We wish you a lot of fun at the festival! FIND is funded by the State of Berlin, Senate Department for Culture and Social Cohesion.

The FIND is funded by the State of Berlin, Senate Department for Culture and Social Cohesion

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