Judith Videcoq

Judith Videcoq is currently the Head of Creative Europe unit in charge of the cultural strand of Creative Europe programme at the European Commission. Previously Deputy Head of Unit in finance at the Directorate General for Education and Culture, she also served as internal auditor at the European Commission that she joined in 2003 and at UNICEF in New York. She studied business and administration as well as European geopolitics and started her career in the private sector working in several European consulting firms.

Frida Edman

Frida Edman is the CEO of Göteborgs Stadsteater (Gothenburg City Theatre), a role she assumed in August 2025, taking over leadership of the city theatre as well as Backa Theatre, and Stora Teatern. She previously led the Gothenburg Book Fair, the Nordic countries biggest cultural event. Today her role covers the overall management of the city's premier cultural institutions. She is the initiator of Gothenburg being a UNESCO City of Literature and the political top meeting of literature in Gothenburg, during the years she has expressed the importance of culture and freedom of expression in a lesser democratic world.

Cláudia Belchior

Cláudia Belchior was the President of the Executive Board of the D. Maria II National Theatre in Lisbon, Portugal, a position she has held from July 2015 - June 2022. Cláudia has been involved with the performing arts for all of her career, at the foremost cultural institutions in Portugal, having served as Director, Coordinator for the Performing Arts, and Deputy Director for Planning and Budget at the Belém Cultural Centre and as Director of Production at the Gulbenkian Foundation. She is currently the executive general coordinator of Centro Cultural de Belém. She has taught courses in Production Management, Stage Management, and Technical Direction in several institutions.

Josette Bushell-Mingo OBE

Josette Bushell-Mingo OBE is Principal and CEO of The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama and Artistic Director for The National Black Theatre of Sweden. Prior to this, she served as Director of Acting at Stockholm University of the Arts and Artistic Director for The National Touring Swedish Deaf Theatre ensemble Tyst Teater Riksteatern.

Josette is an award-winning actor and director whose career has included performances with the Royal Shakespeare Company, the National Theatre and the Manchester Royal Exchange.  She was the  chair of the Community Advisory Group for the Mayor of London’s Black on the Square festival 2024-2025  and is co-chair for the Clean Break theatre company. She is also a trustee of Hackney Empire and the University of London.

In 2016, Josette was awarded an OBE for Services to the Arts. Her other awards include H.M. The King’s Medal 8th Order of the Seraphim by H.M. King Carl XVI Gustaf,  CinemAfrica Arts and Culture Award 2023, Freedom of the City of London 2024, The Judy Craymer Award for Innovation, and Southbank Cultural Diversity Award. 

Heidi Wiley

Heidi Wiley has been Executive Director of the European Theatre Convention (ETC) since 2009. Under her leadership, ETC has become an established European cultural network with an international programme of artistic collaboration, professional development and advocacy for Europe’s public theatres, spanning over 30 countries. She led ETC to become a strategic partner of the European Commission and the recipient of several prestigious prizes, including the 2022 Art Explora – Académie des Beaux-Arts European Award for innovation in access to culture; and European prizes for outstanding achievement in the fields of audience development and cultural heritage. Heidi is a sought after moderator and speaker at European events and conferences. In 2022, Speaker at the 8th Culture & RTBF Meeting; 2021, Consultant for European cultural policy agencies KEA (Brussels) and PPMI (Vilnius); 2020, Co-initiator of the 1st European Theatre Forum of the European Commission and the German EU Council Presidency; 2019, Author for the European Expert Network on Culture and Audiovisual (EENCA). Heidi started her career as international producer and touring manager for artists Victoria Chaplin and the Tiger Lillies, touring around Europe and Asia at major festivals and theatre venues. A studied cultural manager with degrees from La Sorbonne and Leuphana University, she lived and worked over the last 25 years in the UK, US, France and Germany.

Kitte Wagner

Kitte Wagner has, among other roles, served as CEO and Artistic Director of Nørrebro Teater and, prior to that, worked for ten years as a dramaturge and project manager at the Betty Nansen Teatret. From 2016 to 2023, Kitte Wagner was CEO and Artistic Director of Malmö Stadsteater. Since December 2023, Kitte Wagner has been the CEO of Dramaten.

Mladen Alexiev

Mladen Alexiev is a theatre maker. His artistic practice spans writing, theatre, radio, and transmedia projects exploring the interplay between performance and various media formats. He graduated in Theatre Directing from the National Academy for Theatre and Film Arts (NATFA), Sofia. Former fellow of Akademie Schloss Solitude, Stuttgart and a former participant in the DasArts – Master of Theatre programme, Amsterdam. As a collaborator and performer, he has contributed to productions in various European countries.

He is a co-founder of ACT Association—the first independent theatre association in Bulgaria, established in 2009—and served as the artistic director of the inaugural ACT Independent Theatre Festival—ACT Festival—in 2011. Since 2022, Alexiev has served as Head of the International Relations Department at the Ivan Vazov National Theatre in Sofia. He develops the department’s international partner network, focusing on projects, touring, collaborations with international directors, and guest productions. He speaks on cultural policy, artistic freedom, and international theatre ecosystems.

Barbara Ferrato

Barbara Ferrato graduated in classical literature, with a cross-curricular thesis on the history of the theatre and classical Greek literature in Milan. She has obtained a Master's Degree in Organisation and Distribution of Theatre Productions at the Piccolo Teatro/Teatro d’Europa directed by Giorgio Strehler, where she started her career that proceeded in other theatres and companies in Milan.

In 2002 she began to work for the Teatro Stabile di Torino/NT first at the Regional Circuit of Piedmont (40 theatres in the network) and then became the head of artistic, planning and educational department under the directions of Mario Martone and Valerio Binasco.

His position as head of the artistic area encompasses production, programming and organizational management skills, with an eye to the specific artistic needs that each theatrical production brings with it.

These aspects include not only the prose programming of the Turin theatre, but also extend to the international festival Torinodanza, which since 2009 has represented an essential point of reference for modern Italian and international choreography.

Added to this is the responsibility of the school for actors founded by Luca Ronconi in 1992, one of the Italian excellences in the training of new generations of interpreters for the theatre and cinema scene.

Since 2019 she is a member of the ETC Board of Directors.

Norbert Rakowski

Graduated from the Faculty of Drama Directing at the National Academy of Dramatic Art in Warsaw. Since then he directed several dozen plays and co-operated with many theaters in Poland and abroad. He was awarded few times with the Golden Mask for Direction and the Gloria Artis Medal for Merit to Culture and the Minister of Culture Award for artistic achievements in the field of theatre. He mainly directs plays concerned with contemporary topics but also his the author of several plays which he directed himself. A special place in his career is occupied by a period of laboratory work focused on working with dancers and research in combining dramatic language with contemporary dance theater. From 2015 he is the General and Artistic Director of JK Opole Theatre and Director of the Festival of Polish Classic Drama ‘Konfrontacje’. In 2016 he created new space of unusual character called Modelatornia. His idea, was to create and consistently develop a place that would serve the implementation of postulates of Jerzy Grotowski – providing the basis for experimental explorations in the field of theatre. Out of the need to support independent artists in the field of performing arts right after the pandemic, he initiated a new festival Opole Dance Scene, presenting work in the field of contemporary dance
From 2023, he is the Vice-President of European Theatre Convention.

Martin Kukučka

Martin Kukučka (1979) was born in Martin, Slovakia. He moved to Prague to study, where he met Lukáš Trpišovský at DAMU and, with him, founded the directing duo SKUTR. Their productions typically combine dance, movement, acrobatics, puppetry, projections, lighting design, text, and sound. Their graduation projects have already attracted the attention of critics and audiences alike; they have directed for Czech and European stages, and their productions have been presented at many prestigious festivals in Europe and Asia, including the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, where their production The Weepers won the Total Theatre Award. Other significant awards for their work include the 2015 Theatre Newspaper's Award for Best Dance Production of the Year (Walls & Handbags), the 2017 Grenouille Award for the production The Foam of the Days, the 2014 Grand Prix Balet for the ballet The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, the Evald Schorm Award, and the Josef Hlávka Award. From 2017 to 2022, they were members of the artistic leadership of Dlouhá Theatre. Since September 2022, they have been the new artistic directors of the National Theatre Drama.

Christophe Rauck

Christophe Rauck founded his first company in 1995 with actors he met during his years at the Théâtre du Soleil. From 2003 to 2005, he was director of the Théâtre du Peuple in Bussang, where he staged   Evgeny Schwartz's  The Dragon , Bertolt Brecht's Life of Galileo  , and  Nikolai Gogol's The Government Inspector . Subsequently, he directed   Martin Crimp's  Getting Attention , Beaumarchais's The Marriage of Figaro  at the Comédie-Française, and then  The Spider of the Eternal , before directing the TGP – Centre Dramatique National in Saint-Denis from 2008 to 2013. There, he staged  Alexander Ostrovsky's  Ardent Heart ,  Bertolt Brecht's  Round Heads and Pointed Heads ,  Rémi De Vos's  Broken , and Marivaux's The Indiscreet Vows  (Grand Prize of the Critics' Union). During this period, he also staged  Racine's Phèdre  and two operas by Monteverdi.

In 2014, he was appointed director of the Théâtre du Nord and its affiliated drama school, the École du Nord. He has directed three plays by Rémi De Vos (Toute ma vie j'ai fait des choses que je ne savais pas faire ,  Ben oui mais enfin bon,  and  Départ volontaire),  Figaro divorce  by Ödön von Horváth (winner of the Georges-Lerminier Prize from the French Critics' Union for best production outside of Paris),  Shakespeare's As You Like It,  and recently, two plays by Sara Stridsberg: The Faculty of Dreams  and  Dissection of a Snowfall . In 2017, he directed  Molière's Amphitryon  in Moscow , with eight former students of Piotr Fomenko. Invited to the 2018 Avignon Festival with the young actors graduating from the École du Nord's fifth class, Christophe Rauck presented  Le Pays lointain (Un Arrangement), based on the novel by Jean-Luc Lagarce.

Marina Maleni

Marina Maleni has worked successfully as an actress, TV host and radio music producer for several years before 2001, when she started her work as Theatre Development Officer for Cyprus Theatre Organisation.  In charge of State theatre subsidies and policy forming for two decades, European collaborations, playwriting development, non-professional theatre, theatre education programmes, festivals, and the Curator for PQ National Participation of Cyprus since 2007 (Golden Triga 2023).  Additionally, Marina hosted a prominent CYBC TV talk show focused on culture for six years.

Marina Maleni has worked extensively in the Committee for Theatre in Schools (THOC - Ministry of Education and Culture, is a member of the advisory body of the Cyprus Youth Board, a Board member of the Cyprus Theatre Museum, is an honorary member of the Board of CYCSTAT and ASSITEJ Cyprus and is a member of the Advisory Board of World Stage Design. She has coordinated several very successful European culture program collaborations for Cyprus. She has been a Member of the Board of the European Theatre Convention since November 2023.

Frida Röhl

Lotta Lekvall

Lotta Lekvall is Director/CEO at Folkteatern, a theatre based in Göteborg, Sweden, since 2015. Folkteatern has had an incredible development artisticly, organizationally, with the internal working climate, audience development and ticket sales, strengthened economy and marketing strategies. Folkteatern has had several successes artisticly as well as in audience and critics response. IT’s a pricewinning theatre for the plays Hamlet, Ett drömspel, and Bobby Fischer bor I Pasadena. Folkteatern has also been nominated to the Theatre Critics Price for the development and changes at the theatre and in marketing and communication as well as mentioned in The Guardian (February 8, 2020) for being a high-quality theatre and contributing to the area being chosen as one of the ten coolest neighbourhoods in Europe. Lotta Lekvall has attended the one-year programme Executive Diploma in Organisational Leadership, Oxford University, in 2023, and published the book “Performing Arts Leadership. Challenges in the 21st Century” (2024). She was nominated the twenty-fifth (out of a hundred) most influential persons in the city of Göteborg by the daily Göteborgs-Posten in 2023 for saving the theatre from eviction from the localities in the centre of the city.

Serge Rangoni

Serge Rangoni studied at the Conservatoire of Brussels. After working in various theatre institutions and at the Ministry of Culture, he was designated in 2004 as General Manager of Théâtre de Liège. Under his leadership, the theatre received the titles of “European center of theatrical creation and choreography” and “Centres for Drama” in the French-speaking area of Belgium, affirming its role in theatrical and dance productions and their dissemination to local and international audiences. Since his arrival at its head, the institution has developed considerably, with now an audience of 65,000 and more than 180 performances a season. Théâtre de Liège is today the leading stage in Wallonia. In 2026, he will serve as the new artistic director of performaing arts at the Centro Cultural de Belém.

Katie Mitchell

Katie Mitchell has directed over 100 productions in a career spanning 40 years. She directs text-based theatre, Live Cinema and pioneers work about climate change. In the UK she has directed at all the leading theatres including the Royal Shakespeare Company, the National Theatre and The Royal Court. Since 2008 she has worked mainly in Europe and she is a Resident Director at the Schaubuhne (Berlin) and the Deutsches Schauspielhaus (Hamburg).

She has won numerous awards, including four Theatertreffen prizes and two Golden Masks. She was presented with the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 2009, the British Academy's President's Medal for her services to theatre in 2017 and the Tonic Award in 2018 for her nurture of female talent.

She is currently a Professor in Theatre Directing at Royal Holloway University, Professor of Practice at Central School of Speech and Drama and a Visiting Professor at Columbia University.

Argyro Chioti

Argyro Chioti works in Greece and France as a director, actor and drama instructor. She graduated as an actor from the Morfes Higher Drama School of the Embros Theatre (2000) and holds a degree in Theatre Studies and a postgraduate degree (Master 2) in directing and dramaturgy (“Theorie et Pratique des Arts”) from the University of Provence in France (2006). In 2006 she co-founded the Vasistas theatre group, which operated first in France and then in Greece. She has worked across both classic and contemporary drama, and on productions that blur the boundaries between different art forms. Through regular foreign tours and other collaborations, she maintains an active and creative relationship with major European theatres and companies, including Théâtre des 13 Vents, Théâtre de la Bastille, Théâtre Liberté - Chateauvallon, and Comédie des Reims.

She has most recently directed Point of Refreshment at the Athens and Epidaurus Festival; Efthimis Filippou’s Big and Small Ships for the 2023 Eleusis European Capital of Culture; Vitsentzos Kornaros’s Erotokritos at the State Theatre of Northern Greece; Halepas by The Boy at the Onassis Stegi (a co-production with Italy’s Emilia Romagna Teatro Fondazione); Aristophanes’ The Frogs at the Ancient Theatre of Epidaurus; and Efthimis Filippou’s Eau de Cologne at the National Theatre of Greece. 

Iris Laufenberg

Iris Laufenberg studied applied theatre studies in Giessen. Since her time as artistic director of the Bonn Biennale festival, one of her focuses has been on new drama, which she has done in her 10-year activity as director of the Theatertreffen of the Berliner Festspiele, among other things with the profiling of the authors' promotion at the Stückemarkt, as well as subsequently expanded as theatre director at the Konzert Theater Bern. At the Schauspielhaus Graz, Iris Laufenberg founded the annual International Playwrights Festival Graz at the beginning of her artistic directorship in 2015, within which, in addition to contemporary drama, the cross-border, content-related understanding of theatre professionals and young talents is promoted. Iris Laufenberg's focus on the thematic and aesthetic possibilities of the public space (city) theatre between local roots and global necessity is reflected in interdisciplinary and cross-genre projects.Iris Laufenberg is involved nationally and throughout Europe in representing the interests of theatre and in the further development of the art form. She is a board member and vice president of the European Theatre Convention. Iris Laufenberg is the artistic director of the Deutsches Theater Berlin since 2023/24.

Tom Leick-Burns

Born in Luxembourg, Tom Leick-Burns trained as an actor at the Drama Centre London. He has worked extensively in both theatre and film before joining the team of the Grand Théâtre in 2006. He completed an MBA at the Sacred Heart University in 2012 and was appointed artistic director of the Théâtres de la Ville in 2015. The artistic vision of the institution is focused on international collaboration through co-productions and participation in networks and European projects (enoa, ETC, Future Laboratory) and talent development with platforms such as TalentLAB (launched in 2016) and Capucins Libre (launched in 2018), designed to meet the real needs of local artists.

Ildikó Gáspár

Theatre director with international directing experience and extensive background in dramaturgy. Directs classical and contemporary works across major European theatres, specializing in innovative adaptations that examine patriarchal structures, power dynamics, and contemporary social issues. Known for feminist reinterpretations and collaborative, multidisciplinary productions featuring video design, live music, and choreography. Her works are musical-poetical performances using also documentary materials.

Monica Wilderoth

Monica Wilderoth is a Swedish theatre maker working as an actor, director,
playwright and pedagogue. Her work moves between institutional theatres and independent contexts, often in close dialogue with actors and audiences.
Her artistic practice questions the dominance of psychological realism on stage, while remaining within a linear, narrative form. She is interested in what happens when psychology is reduced or displaced, and how meaning is instead co-created between performers and audience.

Class perspective is central to her work, both in terms of representation and whose experiences are allowed to take form on stage. She has held leadership positions as artistic director of the independent group Teater Terrier, head of Borås City Theatre, and artistic director of Byteatern Kalmar County Theatre, and was previously a senior lecturer in acting at Malmö Theatre Academy. Alongside her theatre work, she writes poetry and prose.

Irene Moundraki

Irene Moundraki has obtained a BA, an MA and a PhD in Theatre Studies from the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (Faculty of Theatre Studies). She also studied Arts at the University of Milan, Italy.
She has worked at the National Theatre of Greece since 1999 as a special artistic collaborator and she is head of Drama, Library, Archive and International Relations Departments.
Irene Moundraki is also a visiting professor at the Departments of Theatre Studies of the Universities of Athens and Peloponnese. She teaches History of Theatre and Dramaturgy at Drama Schools. She taught Theatre in the Army (SAN) for five years and has directed several plays with her students.
She is the founder and head of the Greek Play Project, a dynamic platform in Greek and English for the promotion and study of contemporary Greek theatre.