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LETÍ AT THE AIRPORT

Pilot project of The Centre for Contemporary Drama

5 European playwrights, 5 short plays, one venue and one topic – the airport

The ceremonial opening of the Contemporary Drama Centre

The best authors connect in a unique project

The performance consists of four short plays with the main theme being “the airport”. The plays have been written by prominent authors from different European countries: Falk Richter (Germany), David Gieselmann (Germany), Viliam Klimáček (Slovakia), Joe Penhall (GB) and David Drábek (Czech Republic). These playwrights were invited to the first opening at the Prague Airport. Afterwards the production will be staged at the Theatre Na zábradlí under the title No Rooms In Heaven (Letí at the Airport and On the Balustrade); and it will become a part of the theatre’s repertoire.

The theme of the CCD’s pilot project is fast lifestyle of today’s Europe and the airport is the actual symbol of such a lifestyle. The airport serves as a symbol of modern society, its rhythm and its communication. It is a place where individuals and cultures meet. It is a neuralgic point of contemporary society, a place which symbolizes speed, flexibility but also loss of identity, a place outside time and space. 

The first opening (world premiere): September 21, 2010 at the Prague Airport (Terminal 2)  

The second opening: September 24, 2010 in the Theatre Na zábradlí

Project partners: Prague Airport, The Arts and Theatre Institute, Theatre Na zabradli etc.

The ceremonial opening will be held as a part of the festival for foreign producers Czech Theatre Showcase, organized by The Arts and Theatre Institute

Letí at the Airport will symbolically open the Centre for Contemporary Drama, Prague, which will in the future support the circulation of contemporary plays and the cooperation of playwrights and theatres from different European countries.

Falk Richter – Electronic Love

Translated by Martin Schwarz

Dramaturgy by Marie Špalová

Stage Design by Petr B. Novák

Costume Design by Vladimíra Fomínová

Music by Ivan Acher

Directed by David Czesany

The cast: Ondřej Veselý, Natálie Řehořová, Natália Drabiščáková, Richard Fiala, Zdena Hadrbolcová, Ladislav Hampl, Igor Chmela, Tomáš Kobr, Ivan Lupták, Leoš Noha, Jiří Ornest, Gabriela Pyšná, Pavlína Štorková  

Joy is a completely reliable and flexible working force at an airport fast food. But today she is in total distress. The cash register scanner is out of order and there is about twenty panicky looking hectic managers waiting in the line to pay for their sandwiches. Among them, there is Tom. His main merits are reliability and flexibility. But today he forgot his iPhone PIN code. There is every information in there: data, contacts, numbers, codes. Without it he does not know where he actually is, where he has arrived from, where he is flying to. In such a world, is there room for love? Maybe there is room for electronic love...

Falk Richter (1969) was born in Hamburg. Richter studied theatre direction. At present, he is the resident author of the Berliner Schaubühne. Richter directs drama and opera also in other theatre houses, e.g. Schauspielhaus Hamburg, Bayerische Staatsoper, Burgtheater Wien, Toneelgroep Amsterdam, Seven Stages Atlanta and Schauspielhaus Zürich. One of his most popular plays God is a DJ (Gott ist ein DJ, 1998)has  had 50 different production all over the world. His play Nothing hurts (2000) and a four-part cycle of political theatre The System (Das System) have been shown at Schaubühne since 2004. The agency DILIA offers translations of his plays God is a DJ, Electronic City (from The System cycle) and The Breakdown.

Viliam Klimáček – Me in Prague, Mead in London (Já v Praze, játra v Londýně)

Dramaturgy by Marie Špalová

Stage Design by Petr B. Novák

Costume Design by Marián Amsler

Music by Norbi Kovács

Directed by Marián Amsler

The cast: Natália Drabiščáková, Ivan Lupták, Tomáš Kobr

Flight 215 from London to Stanstead. My flight. I’ve spent the time sitting in the bathroom. At first the stewards knocked, and then they realized that the bathroom was the only place where one could be really alone nowadays. One can truly contemplate only in restrooms. A woman in difficulties flies always alone. Baggage handling belt and the light board are the only ones talking to her. So don’t forget to flush so they don’t suspect anything. When the sound of running water is heard, everything’s OK.

Viliam Klimáček was born in 1958 in Trenčín, Slovakia. After finishing his studies at the Medical Faculty at J.A. Komenský University Klimáček worked as a surgeon and anaesthetist. After nine years he quit his medical career and since then he has devoted himself to theatre. Klimáček lives in Bratislava. He received the Alfréd Radok Award for the best Czech and Slovak play six times. Most recently, he was awarded the Alfréd Radok Award for the play Who Is Afraid of Beatles. Since 1985 he has been the artistic director of the independent authorial theatre GUnaGU, where he writes, directs and sometimes also acts.

David Gieselmann – Haló, what?

Translated by Martina Černá

Dramaturgy by Lucie Ferenzová

Stage Design by Petr B. Novák

Costume Design by Vladimíra Fomínová

Music by Ivan Acher

Directed by Thomas Zielinski

The cast: Igor Chmela, Ladislav Hampl, Leoš Noha, Gabriela Pyšná

The flight from Brussels to Copenhagen. They have announced it several times already but I

question myself a little whether I have gone mad: where are we? I’m looking down from the

plane. I don’t know where we are but this definitely isn’t Copenhagen. I know the Copenhagen

airport and this is not it. Maybe they have sent us in a different direction. Maybe we have

been hijacked. They’ve deceived us. Whatever is happening, we are not in Copenhagen.

Where am I? A European gangster play for four actors who are in search of a suitcase full of

money coming from Brussels. A turmoil of languages where no one understands no one.

The airport chaos rules and everyone carries a gun.   

David Gieselmann was born in 1972 in Köln. Gieselmann studied playwriting at the art school Hochschule der Künste in Berlin and he staged his first plays at Theaterszene Berlin. In 1999, he was invited to the International Residency of Playwrights and Week of New German Playwrights at the Royal Court Theatre in London. In 2000, his play Mr Kolpert was produced there in the world premiere. Later it was staged in German as well as in Scandinavia, Italy, Greece, Poland, The Czech Republic, Australia, USA, etc.

David Drábek – The Fluff

Dramaturgy by Lucie Ferenzová, Ivana Slámová

Stage Design by Petr B. Novák

Costume Design by Jana Špalová

Directed by Martina Schlegelová

The cast: Pavlína Štorková, Jiří Ornest, Richard Fiala, Zdena Hadrbolcová

In a den made of branches somewhere in the tree top or somewhere inside a wasp nest. Who knows? Thereabouts they have met. A girl with black hair which are sticky with blood here and there. A plump man with tiny wings. A semi-naked man. A woman behind the desk is offering them drinks. Her look resembles insect. Someone from the sphinx moth family. Lymantriid browntail moth. She is their guide; she is actually going to teach them how to fly.

David Drábek – a  dramatist, director and artistic director of the Klicpera Theatre in Hradec Králové. Drábek graduated from the Arts Faculty of the Palacký University in Olomouc in the field of film and theatre studies. In 1995 Drábek received the Alfréd Radok Award for best play for Joan of the Ark. He also received the Alfréd Radok Award for the best original play of 2003 for his play Aquabelles, which was also awarded the title The Best Czech Play of 2005. In the same year the publishing house Větrné mlýny, Brno published a collection of seven of his plays. His play “The Brothers Mašín Square” was awarded second prize at Alfréd Radok Awards and two years later it was also awarded the title The Best Czech Play of 2009. As author, director and dramaturge he cooperates with the Klicpera Theatre in Hradec Králové, Petr Bezruč Theatre in Ostrava and Theatre Minor in Prague.

The Project Letí at the Airport has emerged thanks to the support of The Prague City Hall, Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic, The City Part Prague 1, Czech Literary Fund,

The Arts an Theatre Institute, Theatre Na zábradlí etc. 

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IMMURED / MAUERSCHAU

A Cabaret Without Timetable / Cabaret Ohne Fahrplan

by Barbora Vaculová

Project partners: SpreeAgenten Berlin, Goethe Institut Prague