I HAVE EATEN HEAVEN
The life and poetry of the mystic Silia Walter in her own words. With original compostions by Felix Huber.
Text and Actor: Christine Lather
Songs and piano: Felix Huber
Directors: Eva Mann & Lilian Naef
Costumes: Heiner Widemann
Sound & light: Walter Fuchs
photos: Valentina Morrone
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ICH HABE DEN HIMMEL GEGESSEN
Eine Hommage an die Dichterin und Mystikerin Silja Walter in Text und Lied.
Textfassung, Spiel & Gesang: Christine Lather
Komposition & Piano: Felix Huber
Regie: Eva Mann & Lilian Naef
Kostümbild: Heiner Widemann
Technik: Walter Fuchs
Fotos: Valentina Morrone
AIRSWIMMING
by Charlotte Jones.
Standard German German / Wallis dialect translation by Eva Mann & Cindy-Jane Armbruster
Directed by Eva Mann
Cast: Cindy-Jane Armbruster (Persephone), Lilian Naef (Dora), Fabienne Imoberdorf (Musician)
Co-produced by PLAYADES & ZeughausKultur Brig
Airswimming by Charlotte Jones is based on a true story. 1920s, St Dymphna's Asylum for the Criminally Insane: Persephone, Daddy's little girl, has given birth to a child out of wedlock, so she's been locked away. At St Dymphna's she meets Dora, a virago with a passion for military history. Dora and Persephone scrub the bathroom floors. For years. For decades. Forgotten by their families, they are not released until some 50 years later.
Trapped in the solitude of their daily routine, the two women eventually bond - what is initially a matter of necessity and convenience slowly deepens into genuine friendship and connection. They start sharing stories from their lives, or fragments of stories, since neither has ever been able to fully grasp what happened to her, and why.
The narrative is interrupted by the appearance of Dorph and Porph - alter egos of the two captured women - who go on wild and increasingly surreal adventures: airswimming, joining the Red Army's women's battalion, living their lives to a soundtrack of Doris Day. Similar to Beckett's tramps, Dorph and Porph are waiting for an unfathomable, unknowable, eternally absent something, which might be able to offer redemption and meaning.
Airswimming is a tragicomedy, an hommage to the many women who were locked up in asylums and prisons for being single mothers or simply not quite fitting in.
MY DRESS IS MY CHOICE
by Forum Theatre Nairobi
Mathare North Hall, Nairobi, Kenya
Director: Washington Obwandah
Dramaturgy & project coordination: Eva Mann
MY DRESS IS MY CHOICE is a forum theatre piece created for the inhabitants of the Mathare, Huruma and Kariobangi Slums in Nairobi. It responds to the recent surge in public violence against women based on their choice of clothing.
Forum theatre is based on the idea that a society can only solve its problems from within. The solutions the people themselves suggest are those they can implement. Forum theatre aims to encourage dialogue, foster freedom of speech and to create a space where societal issues can jointly be examined.
WHY BOTHER BEING JEWISH?
A cabaret about religious and secular identity
Created by SinnSpiel:
Director: Robert Salzer
Dramaturgy: Eva Mann
With: Esther Goldberger, Hélène Helfgott, Janos Morvay, Edy Pluznik
Why bother being Jewish? - Why are we part of this... group? religion? club? people? ... ? Does it define us? Is it of any use? An if so: To whom?
One tent, lots of comfy seats, lots of uncomfy questions, perhaps some food, 4 actors in search of an identitiy, more opinions than we'd care to count, maybe G'd (singular!) somewhere, or not, 200 years of yiddish theatre,... an experiment.
PENTHESILEA
by Heinrich von Kleist
English translation: Joel Agee
Playades Theatre Company at The Space London & Sweet Venues, Edinburgh Fringe
July & August 2013
Directed by Eva Mann
Cast: Rayyah McCaul (Penthesilea), Victory Tyrrell (Prothoe), Cindy-Jane Armbruster (Meroe/Asteria), Maria Alexe (High Priestess), Tim Carey Jones (Achilles), George Bull (Diomedes), Alexander Clifford (Antilochus), Samuel Humphreys (Odysseus)
Set & Costumes: Eva Ott
Boy meets girl. Girl eats boy. - Creating his very own version of the myth, Kleist's Penthesilea is disturbing tale of culture clash, gender war and lethal love. "A kiss, a bite … who truly loves with all her heart can easily mistake them.."
СТРАСТИ ПО РОМЕО И ДЖУЛЬЕТТЕ
A Physical Theatre Performance of Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet
Anton-Chekhov-Theatre, Taganrog, Russia
Directed by Eva Mann, Lluvia Barrera Rivas and Marcus Roche
Set & Costumes: Gennadi Ostrenko
Dramaturgy: Sergey Ostrenko
Cast: Sergy Barinov, Tatyana Boyko, Marina Dren, Will Flanagan, Natalya Krasnyanskaya, Pablo Lechuga, Eva Mann, Svetlane Nesvetova, Roman Pilayev, Lluvia Barrera Rivas, Marcus Roche,Yana Roshneva, Tatyana Shebaldas, Alexander Tsheryenkov, Vasily Yegelsky
The ensemble of the Anton Chekhov Repertory Theatre and their international guests from Mexico, the US, Greece, France, Ireland, Scotland and Switzerland explore the world's most famous story of love & death.
The project stands under the mentorshop of the movement teacher and choreographer Sergey Ostrenko.
THE MOST DANGEROUS TOY
Devised by Playades. Written by Eva Mann
London: Rosemary Branch Theatre & Theatre503 / Edinburgh: TheSpaces @ Surgeons Hall
Directed by Eva Mann
Cast: Maria Alexe (Lou Salomé), Jamie Laird (Friedrich Nietzsche)
A new devised play about the extraordinary relationship between Friedrich Nietzsche and Lou Salomé.
The production merges private letters, historic documents, poetry and devised theatre, bringing to life the man behind the myth Nietzsche – and the forgotten female narrative of an uncompromising woman who inspired his work.
"The Most Dangerous Toy” offers a uniquely personal perspective on one of modernity's most influential and misunderstood thinkers.
THE PATH NOT TAKEN
Devised / Improvised
Versionale Motto, Leipzig
Directed by Eva Mann
Cast: Roy Fischer, Thomas Grampp, Martina Ineichen
A short devised play to fit the festival's motto "Krise Immer Chance" - "A crisis is an opportunity. Or is it?"
Protagonist Emil interacts with his own self at different ages and re-visit the decisions and coincidences that shaped his life. What had he chosen differently? Would it have made a difference?
גאָט מענטש און טײַוול
"GOT, MENTSH UN TAYVL" by Jacob Gordin
New Yiddish Rep / Congress for Jewis Culture, NYC
Directed by Eva Mann
Cast: Shane Baker (Mazik), Allen Lewis Rickman (Hershele), Paul Hershl Glasser (G'd / Khatskel) Yelena Shmulenson (Freydenyu), David Mandelbaum (Leyzer), Alec Leyzer Burko (Narrator) Music by: Benji Fox-Rosen
A wager between God and the devil lets the pious torah scribe come to sudden riches. But what is the price of self-fulfillment for Hershele’s family, friends, faith?
A staged reading of 7 scenes in Yiddish with with English/Yiddish narration.
HALBE WAHRHEITEN
by Alan Ayckbourn
German translation "Halbe Wahrheiten":
Ensemble Eleven at Theater Töpferei Zürich, CH
Directed by Eva Mann
Cast: Christoph Heusser (Philip), Jorinde Emmenegger (Ginny), Thomas Grampp (Greg), Klara Wilke (Sheila)
Greg and Ginny have been living together for a month. A mysterious pair of slippers and a huge amount of flowers make Greg somewhat suspicious that he may not the only man in her life. When Ginny tells him she's going 'to visit her parents', he decides to follow her. But the man Greg meets in the English countryside and takes for Ginny's dad is in fact her considerably older ex-lover. Understandably, Philip is somewhat astranged by this young man who is asking for his daughter's hand in marriage. Wait a minute, perhaps he's after Philip's wife, Sheila? When Ginny arrives, chaos is complete.
BLUE BEARD BABES
Devised by Playades. Written by Eva Mann
Edinburgh Fringe Festival, The Spaces at North Bridge (August 2011)
Directed by Eva Mann.
Cast: Alice Frick (Aragon), Maria Alexe (Boleyn), Jiin Jang (Seymour), Lauren Karl (Cleves), Romina Boldasu (Howard), Cindy-Jane Armbruster (Parr)
Six actresses have been summoned to rehearse a play about Henry VIII's wives. On the first day of the rehearsal, all they find is a box of cards, a cast list and an ominous note from the absent director: “The cards have been dealt. Discover your characters. Play games.”
As the play unfolds, the 6 actresses are haunted by the dead queens, as they explore differneces and similarities between their life interests and those of the 16th century queens.
OTHELLO (Ausschnitt)
von William Shakespeare
Shakespeare's Globe - Sam Wanamaker Festival 2011
Regie: Philip Weaver & Eva Mann
Mit: Abukar Osman (Othello), Katy Rooke (Desdemona)
The Sam Wanamaker Festival is held annually at Shakespeare's Globe in London to commemorate its founder, the American
actor and director Sam Wanamaker. Students each of the UK’s twenty-two accredited drama schools present a mix of tragical, historical, pastoral and comical duologues from plays by Shakespeare and his contemporaries on the Globe stage.
East 15's 2011 submission to the festival was the final scene between Othello and Desdemona.
In accordance to the festival's rules, no props or items of set were used, placing full emphasis on the interpersonal drama unfolding in Shakespeare's verse - ending with Desdemona's dead body being launched into the sea of groundlings at her feet: Shakespearean stage-diving!
BEFORE AND WHILE TRAINING:
DER BÄR
von Anton Chekhov
GITIS Theatre Academy, Mosow
ET IN HORA MORTIS NOSTRAE
Inspiriert von Erasmus von Rotterdams "Naufragium"
East 15 Acting School
Text & Regie: Eva Mann
Mit: Catherine Rowney, Ben Margalith
PSYCHE PEREGRINA
Entwickelt mit Playades; nach Mörikes "Peregrina" und dem Mythos von Eros & Psyche
East 15 Acting School
Übersetzung / Text / Regie: Eva Mann
Spiel: Romina Boldasu
TROILUS & CRESSIA
von William Shakespeare
East 15 Acting School
Regie: Eva Mann
Mit : Ruth Glennay (Cressida), Mathew Hamper (Ajax), Luke Robinson (Agamemnon), James Ivens (Achilles), Jack Elliot Thompson (Patroclus), Lewis Allcock (Menelous), Alistair Hoyle (Ulysses), Nathan Browne (Diomedes)
RESURRECTION BLUES
von Arthur Miller
The Gay Beggars Basel, CH / FEATS Festival Brüssel
JunI 2009
Ein impotenter General. Ein suizidaler Revolutionär. Eine amerikanische TV Crew mit 75 Million Dollar.
Diktatur, Drogen, ein bisschen Liebe - und vielleicht sogar eine Kreuzigung.
THE DIFFICULT MAN
nach "Der Schwierige" von Hugo von Hofmannsthal
The Gay Beggars Basel, CH
JunI 2006
Stell Dir vor es ist Krieg und keiner schaut hin.
Charlie und Aaron sind nach dem, was sie an der Front erlebt haben, der gesellschaftlichen Interaktion nur mehr bedingt fähig. Die Gesellschaft ihrerseits will vom Krieg nicht wissen. Er ist "dort draussen". - Auf diesem tragischen Untergrund entspinnt sich die leichtfüssigste Komödie.