PROJEKT THEATER STUDIO – founded in Vienna in May of Mai 1998 as part of PROJEKT THEATER / Vienna-New York – is one of Austria’s main centers for experimental theater and performance work with international orientation and participation and an integrated acting ensemble.  The STUDIO aims at the collective development of new performance vocabularies on the basis of contemporary literary texts and themes of cultural and political import (the role of women in the aftermaths of emancipation movements, xenophobia and contemporary war-efforts, Austrians’ Eastern-European heritage as well as Jewish cultural traces lost in the historical maze since WII, the impact of a “New World Order” on human interactions).

At the STUDIO, a group of 10 artists works at a systematic recovery and development of experimental and interdisciplinary theatral forms as well as vital dialogue with inflluential performance theoreticians internationallly.  Topical themes derived from new texts by well-know authors are worked upon in continuous production-cylcles, everyday live-experiences of ensemble-members, and challenging cultural and political events (e.g. the war in Iraque) in increasingly site-specific formats and interactive performances, including festivals in rural areas.  They stand in the aesthetic tradition and use the emotional force of a “poor theater” (following Jerzy Grotowski and his heirs) in which the human being remains the central “actor” in opposition to post-modern strategies favouring a globalized “event”-culture relying on new technologies.

Important to this research is an active exchange with theaters and laboratories in Austria and abroad which are explicitly dedicated to contemporary working- and training methods for the purpose of creating – from the ashes of free theater movements of the 20th century – a new theatrical „Avantgarde in the mainstream“.  While the first years were focused on an exchange with Western European and American artists, this scope has widened to encompass more and more Eastern-European artists and groups in response to European Enlargement.  Collaborations with and guest-performances of artists from Poland, Czechia, Slovakia, and Hungary have since enriched the Austrian independent theatrical landscape. 

The first two years of theatrical base-research used Samuel Beckett’s play “Endgame“ in six productions of "ENDGAME in process" to engage a lingering sense of “apocalypse” in the wake of the war in former Yugoslavia (1998-1999).  Then the ensemble initiated the production-cycle “PHANTOM : LOVE“ – Projects on Border/Relations, World Premieres in Collaboration with contemporary Austrian Writers to explore the possibilities of “love” today and questioning the future: is Love just a “phantom” or rather a real option of human (co-)existence?  For four years, the ensemble created new performance works in close contact with leading Austrian writers for the intimate space of the STUDIO.  Between to and three main productions yearly are accompanied by prominently casted „Artists’ Talks“, Workshops with renowned international theater trainers, exhibits, concerts and guest productions at the STUDIO.

Since 2002 the STUDIO is presenting in cooperation with the city of Neulengbach, the Region of Lower Austria and the SCHIELE ART CENTRUM (Césky Krumlov, CZ) the yearly SCHIELEwerkstattFESTIVAL in Neulengbach/NÖ, initiated with the support of the EU-program Interreg III.  The festival’s focus is on the cultural exchange between West and Central Europe whereby about 20 artists and art groups are invited each year  for ten days to Lower Austria.

Selected paintings and drawings from the period of Schiele’s incarceration at Neulengbach’s prison (1912) lie at the heart of the SCHIELEwerkstattFESTIVAL and form its yearly thematic starting point.  The festival is dedicated to “Art as Process” - invited interdisciplinary artists and art groups come to Neulengbach each summer with ideas and associations to one chosen painting – but not with finished products.  The aim of the festival-“workshops” is the creation of new art works furnished in group-collaborations during the festival and starting from each artist’s authentic impressions of the city, its people and landscape/s.  A final performance forms the yearly climax of the festival the taking place as a “work-in-progress” theater-, music- and art-event in all spaces where artists worked during the week – including the streets, local shops and the Schiele-prison in the city center. 

In 2004 the STUDIO inaugurated the international art festival „ILéMOUVANTE, Ateliers Internationaux d’Art Contemporains“ on the Mediterranean island of Sant’ Antonino on Corsica. Each summer dozens of artists from different countries work together in interdisciplinary workshops on a chosen topic relating to the village life. The goal is to intensify mutual understanding of each others cultural heritages between the people of the village and visiting artists from across Europe.  One special focus is the invitation of Central European artists coming to the Corsican island for the first time.  At the end the results of the work are presented to the public in a fiesta-performance «ILéMOUVANTE : LA FÊTE» .  Thereby the entire village turns stage.

In the fall of 2004 the new artistic team openend of a new performance space – the FLEISCHEREI, a local shop with large “windows to the world” in the heart of the 7th Vienna District – inaugurated phase2 of the theater.  The move into the new headquarters provides a meeting point between artistic work, research and interaction with the district’s inhabitants as well as new social movements.  The FLEISCHEREI thus functions as a new kind of local art-center focusing on issues of cultural identity and political alterity.  In the course of this change – and fostered by the so-called Viennese “Theater Reform” of the last two years – a new artistic leading team was formed around (Eva Brenner, Corinne Eckenstein of fe/male polaroids and Nicolas Dabelstein of theater turbine). In 2005 the team will embark on a new production cycle entitled “NICE TO MEAT YOU!, Scenes from the Age of TERROR & COOLNESS”, 2005-2007, destined to theatrically investigate the consequences of “Neo-Liberalism” on interpersonal relationships and the “New World Order” in a post-“9/11” global landscape.  The production leading up to the new cycle was the project „FLEISCH_Rezitation“ – a site-specific performance which took place in the FLEISCHEREI and in the streets and surrounding shops with new texts by Austrian writers  Margit Hahn and petschinka. In the spring of 2005 the team premiered works by noted German-Jewish lyricist and poet Else Lasker-Schüler with a new text by Austrian novelist-playwright, Marlene Streeruwitz under the titel "HEART.fear".  The project was based on Lasker-Schüler’s „orientalizing“ prose and investigated projections of the „orient“ and „occident“ from the point of view of four women from different cultural backgrounds.

Starting in the fall of 2005/06, the new artistic team initiated a one-year Heiner Müller-project with late texts of noted German poet and dramatist Müller at the occasion of the 10th anniversary of his death.  In the first project entitled “HEART.pieces“ in October/November 2005 a collective creation of an intercultural ensemble explored Müller's plays, prose texts and adaptations of late poems.  The goal of this world-premiere production was to seek a new approach to staging Müller and to elucidate the dramatist’s topicality for the contemporary theater.  The Müller-project year was continued with Eva Brenner's staging of Heiner Müller's play "Ödipus Tyrann" using additional to texts by Inge Müller, Michèle Fabien and the ensemble and rendered in a German-polish version in the spring of 2006.

With the performance of "HEART.pieces" -  lasting 10 days and 10 nights non-stop - 10 actors, musicians and filmmakers worked, performed and discussed scenes using late texts and poems by Heiner Müller. The theater functioned as a local shop and new kind of encounter-space which stood open to visitors day and night. The intercultural team of acitvists played, read, discussed and cooked meals for the audience, the acitivites took place in the space as well as on the street.

In the following Projectcycle (2006/07) on the theme "migration&integration" the young Austrian playwrights Charles Ofoedu (Nigeria/Austira) and Magda Woitzuck) will be commissioned to write new works.  The cycle will be based on socio-theatrical experiments in the public space designed for local innner-city communities and integrate a revisited view on Elfriede Jelineks play, "The Work" (Das Werk) of 2002.

WORLD PREMIERES1998 -1999 (Opening PROJEKT THEATER STUDIO)

Five productions based on the play by Samuel Beckett

ENDGAME in process 1-3 - 1998 (Regie: Eva Brenner, A/NYC)

ENDGAME in process 3 - Auftragswerk/Koproduktion, Kulturzentrum bei den Minoriten Graz

ENDGAME in process 4 – 1999 (Regie: Terry O’Reilly, New York)

ENDGAME in process 5, “Lying/Sitting/Standing/Walking//Running“ - 1999 (Regie: Eva Brenner)

 

WORLD PREMIERES 2000

MARLENE STREERUWITZ – “THE 1st 40 YEARS I KEPT LOOKING FOR MY GOD”

Mise-en-Scène: Mary Overlie  (USA), March 2000

INGEBORG BACHMANN – „EVERYBODY KNOWS“ (“ES WEISS JA JEDER”)

Performance with newly publishes poems, Opening: November 2001

Mise-en-Scène: Eva Brenner (A/USA)

October 2000

 

WORLD PREMIERES 2001

INGEBORG BACHMANN –

Revival „EVERYBODY KNOWS”,

February 2001

ELISABETH REICHART -

„APHRODITES LAST APPEARANCE“ („APHRODITES LETZTES ERSCHEINEN“)

3 Solo works and Group Performances

Mise-en-Scène: Eva Brenner, Installation: Beat Zoderer (CH)

November 2001

 

WORLD PREMIERES 2002

COLLABORATION 1 - LORE HEUERMANN (A/G) –

„THE FUGITIVE OF THE MOMENT“ („DAS FLÜCHTENDE DES AUGENBLICKS“)

„L’amore fa passare il tempo, Il tempo fa passare l’amore“

Installation Exhibit, March 2002

HANNA KRALL –

“POLA”, Performance using the short story of the same title (1998)

As part of the „Polish Year in Austria 2002”

in German and Polish language

Mise-en-Scène: Eva Brenner, Installation: Walter Lauterer (A)

November 2002

 

WORLD PREMIERES 2003

EVA BRENNER / LEE BREUER (USA)

“AUF DER SUCHE NACH JAKOB / SEARCHING FOR JACOB / SZUKAJAC JAKUBA”

In German, English and Polish language

Conceived for Vienna, Cracow & New York, Jan.-Dez. 2003

Text: Eva Brenner, Mise-en-Scène : Eva Brenner/Lee Breuer

Opening : March 2003, Cracow Tour June 2003

WERNER SCHWAB – „SCANDAL : SILENCE“ („SKANDALON : STILLE“) -

Performance with music for “Graz - Cultural Capital of Europe 2003”

Mise-en-Scène: Eva Brenner, Installation: Jakob Scheid (A)

Literature House Graz: September 2003, Vienna: October 2003

 

WORLD PREMIERES 2004

INGEBORG BACHMANN – „On this darkening Star“ („Auf diesem dunkelnden Stern“, Premiere at Trinity College, Dublin (IR), April 30th 2004, as part of the Internationalen Bachmann-Conference (April 30th – May 1st).

Mise-en-Scène: Eva Brenner, Performance: Maren Rahmann (D)

GRAND OPENING of the new performance space FLEISCHEREI

„FLEISCH_Rezitation 1” with world Premiere texts by

MARGIT HAHN (A) – “The Upswing is Coming!”

& petschinka (A) - “Carlo Giuliani”

Mise-en-Scène: Eva Brenner, Nicolas Dabelstein (G), Corinne Eckenstein (CH), petschinka (A)