German Theater Abroad is coming back for another bite of the Big Apple! Following the popular and critical success of the NEW GERMAN VOICES Festival at the Public Theater in the summer of 2004, German Theatre Abroad will be taking international theatrical exchange to the next level with the presentation of STADTTHEATER NEW YORK.

This time, in addition to bringing fresh plays and playwrights, we are bringing the experience of the GERMAN STATE THEATER SYSTEM. Featuring dozens of plays in rotating repertory with new productions each season, a permanent ensemble of actors, multiple performance spaces and a rich offering of complementary lectures, workshops and discussions: these federally subsidized cultural institutions are found only in Germany.

Much more than a cultural export, STADTTHEATER NEW YORK is an intercultural experiment: Over the course of one month, the city of New York will experience the offerings of a German state theater as a contemporary theatrical installation created by the German playwrights Roland Schimmelpfennig and Ingrid Lausund, one German and one American director, Simone Blattner and Daniel Fish, and American actors.  Something new is going to happen. Come in and find out.

The performances themselves are just the beginning of this international theatrical exchange. Talk-Backs, lectures and panels form an essential part of STADTTHEATER. Just like another series of readings of contemporary German drama, the NEW GERMAN VOICES 2006.

To this end the DIE KANTINE will be created as a meeting place for talk-backs, presentations, conversation and, of course, for the sharing of good food, drink and music. Last year’s GEMÜTLICHKEIT will be back in this year’s café DIE KANTINE.

DIE KANTINE will also be the forum for “The Theater We Want”. This Symposium, with invited guests from the cultural, economic and political sectors, examines and discusses the extent to which aesthetic concepts and institutional structures shape cultural identity.