Tuesday 24 September 2024, 12:30 - 14:00 CET (online)

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Miguel Castro Caldas writes plays, stage and dismantles shows and occasionally translates. He teaches theater and literature at the university, and also martial arts. In theater he has worked with Bruno Bravo, Manuel Wiborg, Jorge Silva Melo, Mónica Garnel, Raquel Castro, Gonçalo Amorim, Franzisca Aarflot, Cristina Carvalhal, Lígia Soares, Pedro Gil, António Simão, Gonçalo Waddington, Márcia Lança, António Alvarenga, Sónia Barbosa, Sofia Cabrita, António Torres, Pedro Ramos, among others. His published work can be found in the collection Livrinhos de Teatro by Artistas Unidos, Culturgest, Primeiros Sintomas, Douda Correria, Imprensa Universitária de Coimbra, Ambar and in the magazines Artistas Unidos, Fatal and Blimunda. He won an Honorable Mention in 2005 for his work as a playwright from the Association of Theatre Critics and the 2017 Portuguese Society of Authors prize for the best Portuguese text performed with Se Eu Vivesse Tu Morrias.

The Frailty of Togetherness (2022) stems from a desire to discuss – dialogically - the most pressing and complex challenges Europe and the world is facing today: the (re)rise of populism and authoritarian models. By participating in this current dialogue, this play proposes to look at key concepts such as democracy, liberalism, capitalism and marriage. What do they mean? Do they still matter today?

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Magne Van den Berg graduated from the Mime section of the Amsterdam University of Arts in 1994. Up until 1999, she performed her own plays, but from 2006 and onward she started focussing solemnly on her writing. Her plays Kale bomen ruisen niet (Bare trees don’t rustle) and De lange nasleep van een korte mededeling (The Big Aftermath of a Small Disclosure) have been translated into German, English and French and are internationally well renowned. In 2008, Van den Berg received De H.G van der Viesprijs for De lange nasleep van een korte mededeling and in 2016, she received De Taalunie Toneelschrijfprijs, the most prestigious Dutch playwriting award, for Ik speel geen Medea (I won't play Medea). This play was also recently translated to Portuguese and performed in Brazil.

Snackbar (2022) deals with the harsh realities of child sexual abuse and incest. This is a profound and disconcerting play about the courage it takes to stand up for yourself and others. More than focussing on the physical horrors of sexual abuse, the play investigates the horror of silence and celebrates the strength of those who dare to break it.
A "challenging" play that sensitively tackles the heavy topic of child sexual abuse: it does not only break the silence but also thematises it.

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Nalini Vidoolah Mootosamy is an Italo-Mauritian playwright and writer. Mootoosamy holds a PhD in French studies from the University of Milan, where she taught French Literature and Culture for ten years. In the theatrical field, she trained and specialised in dramatic writing, having attended workshops and internships with Vitaliano Trevisan, Renato Gabrielli, Davide Carnevali, Victoria Szpunberg, and Ella Hickson.
Mootoosamy collaborates with the project “Teatro Utile” at the Accademia dei Filodrammatici in Milan, focusing on the theme of migration and second-generation migrants to Italy. In 2018, Mootoosamy founded the Ananke Arts Association, which organises theatrical training projects and performing events with a focus on contemporary themes. Her play The Foreigner’s Smile was selected as the winner of the Fabulamundi Call for Second-Generation Migrant Playwrights in Italy.
In 2021, she joined as a playwright in the Fabulamundi Playwriting Europe network, participating in several theatre projects in Europe. In 2022, she was selected for the project Interactiones, which aims to create a theatre network between Italy, Mediterranean Europe, and Latin America. 

Lost & Found (2022) is a play on the right to freedom of movement. A right that often becomes a privilege based on “who we are” and “where we come from”. On one side, we follow the story of two tourists (A and B) who, thanks to the privilege of their European passports, can move more freely in non-European countries and visit places they consider to be their “dream places”. On the other hand, we witness the misadventures of X, a migrant without the right documents, to reach and stay in his “dream place”: the European fortress.

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Milan Ramšak Marković is an awarded dramaturge, playwright and performer, born in Belgrade. Apart from working in the institutional drama theatre, he is writing for film and television and is active in the contemporary dance scene and independent performing arts scene in Ljubljana and Belgrade. His plays have been staged in Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Lithuania and England and he worked as a dramaturge in Croatian, Danish, German, Slovenian, Italian and Serbian theatre productions. In 2017/18 he co-wrote a critically acclaimed TV show in Serbia “Tomorrow Is a New Day” (“Jutro će promeniti sve”) and his movie “Yugo Florida” is currently in production.

A Rainy Day in Gurlitsch (2023) is inspired by a wish to play with road-movie dramaturgy in theatre. Beginning as a benign dialogue play showing a dinner party in a charming middle-class home, we slowly turn to the central theme of the play: a fragmented trip through a traumatic feeling of loss that we recognise as common in today’s Western liberal culture.

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Paulien Geerlings (Amsterdam,1970) is a Dutch theatre-maker with an Indo-European background and boardmember of the European Theatre Convention (ETC). After her high school education, she studied Philosophy and Theatre studies at the University of Amsterdam, gaining her MSc in 1997. In 2004 she received her MA at DasArts (currently DAS Theatre), a master’s programme for artistic practices in the field of theatre at the Amsterdam University of the Arts. Since her graduation in 1997 she has been working as a freelance dramaturge with several theatre directors, including Ola Mafaalani, the South-African based Bratt Bailey and Marcus Azzini. For the last fourteen years, she has been head of dramaturgy and international collaborations at De Toneelmakerij, the Amsterdam theatre company for young audiences. Both at De Toneelmakerij and at ETC, her key focus is on diversity policies and gender equality. Next to this, she translated several plays, wrote theatre adaptations, taught at the Amsterdam University of the Arts and was a founding board member of Assitej NL. As a dramaturge, she has a strong focus on the development of new repertoire and the coaching of playwrights.

Geerlings is also ETC Board and ETC Drama Committee Member.

• Introduction by European Theatre Convention
• Insights into the ETC Drama Committee by Paulien Geerlings
• Presentation by playwright Magne van den Berg
• Q&A
• Presentation by playwright Miguel Castro Caldas
• Q&A
• Presentation by playwright Nalini Vidoolah Mootoosamy
• Q&A
• Presentation by playwright Milan Ramšak Marković
• Q&A
• Conclusion