GTA TIMELINE

1996-2005 History and Projects

1996 German Theater Abroad Inc. (GTA) is founded as a Non-Profit Organization in New York and recognized by the New York Foundation for the Arts.

1997 GTA produces its first English-language reading, Klaus Pohl's Die schöne Fremde (The Beautiful Stranger) at the Apex Art Gallery in Soho, New York. The leading role is performed by Barbara Sukowa, recipient of the "Palme d'Or" at Cannes.

1998 GTA founds a daughter organization, German Theater Abroad e. V., in Berlin. GTA produces the first season of the New German Voices Festival in New York. GTA introduces seven contemporary German playwrights and their plays in American-English translation to a New York audience at the renowned Cherry Lane Theater.

1999 Podewil, one of Berlin's most respected alternative theaters, sponsors "For a Handful of Dollars", a benefit evening for GTA. Respected actors, including Heinz Hoenig, perform a reading of Klaus Pohl's Wartesaal Deutschland (Waiting Room Germany). The proceeds allow the second season of New German Voices to be performed at the Cherry Lane Theater, this time presenting six plays and playwrights to an American audience.

2000 German Theater Abroad Inc. produces a site-specific production of Alexei Schipenko's Suzuki with German and American actors in a garage in Chelsea and runs for eighteen performances. The production enjoys both a popular and a critical success. Suzuki was first presented in New York as a part of the 1998 New German Voices.

2001 GTA e.V. creates and produces the four-day festival Playstation, in association with the Düsseldorf Schauspielhaus,. Five of the thirteen plays read are chosen by a German and American jury for presentation in the next season of New German Voices. The GTA Shop is established on Schröderstrasse in Berlin, which serves as both office and performance space. The series Tisch und Werk is created, which presents readings of contemporary plays every Thursday. The generous support of numerous publishing companies allows the creation on an international theater library.

2002 GTA presents over sixty plays to the Berlin public as readings. Both audience response and criticism from the press are overwhelmingly favorable.

2003 Relaunch of the GTA Shop program with the “Contemporary Performing Arts Library” (CPAL) and a new series, Talking Texts with the motto “New West”. GTA produces the Red Eye Series, a festival for contemporary North American drama, at the Forum Freies Theater (FFT) in Düsseldorf.

2004 GTA continues to produce its established reading series, Talking Texts, in Berlin and returns to the FFT in Düsseldorf to produce Red Eye Series 02, a continuation of the successful project from the previous year.

With the motto Five Days of Gemüchtlichkeit the New German Voices 2004 (June 27th – July 1st, 2005), which moved from the Cherry Lane Theater to the Public Theater, one of Off-Broadway’s most renowned institutions, stands foremost among GTA’s acheivements in its 8 years creative career. The festival was highly praised on both sides of the Atlantic by critics and audience alike.

2005 In November and December GTA presented a Talking Texts Special: Israel: 3 Plays, 1 Film. Within this series, three contemporary Israeli plays were presented as staged readings and Anna Faroqhi's documentary film "House and Desert" was screened.