Internationaler Autor*innenwettbewerb

In the organizer's words:

Readings / International playwriting competition / Guest country Canada / Monnet/Milot/St-Laurent/Tannahill/Shields

Heidelberg Play Market

Zwinger 3

1:30 pm "Marguerite: The Fire" by Émilie Monnet / 2:30 pm "Illegal" by Marie-Ève Milot and Marie-Claude St-Laurent / 4:00 pm "Prince Faggot" by Jordan Tannahill / 5:00 pm "To the Light" by Erin Shields

The readings in Zwinger 3 will be streamed live. They will also be available as a video afterwards.
There will be an audience discussion after each reading.

"Marguerite: The Fire" ("Marguerite: Le feu") by Émilie Monnet
from the French (Québec) by Sonja Finck
The year is 1740 in Mooniyaang, today's Montréal. It is here that Marguerite Duplessis sues against her own enslavement and shipment to the plantations of Martinique. This makes her the first slave to be heard as a legal subject by a court in New France (now Canada). Nevertheless, her trail is lost on a ship to the volcanic island in the Caribbean. Based on intensive historical research, a play between past and present has been created in which three women set out in search of the truth and thus fight against the forgetting of one of the darkest chapters in Canada's history.

"Illegal" ("Clandestines") by Marie-Ève Milot and Marie-Claude St-Laurent
Translated from the French (Québec) by Sonja Finck and Frank Weigand
In a reality in which abortions are increasingly being pushed into illegality, Sylvia and Marie are at the forefront of the fight for female self-determination. The two run a secret practice and secretly carry out abortions at night. Vera fights just as resolutely, but for a ban on abortion. When she enters the practice one night and loses control, everything changes. One thing leads to another and a story unfolds that links characters with very different attitudes and in which political and private interests intermingle. In "Illegal", Marie-Ève Milot and Marie-Claude St-Laurent spread out a social kaleidoscope, making a highly topical political discourse tangible and challenging us to take a stance.

"Prince Faggot" by Jordan Tannahill
translated from the English by Frank Weigand
Six performers approach a queer royal biography, projected into the near future, based on personal experiences. What if Britain's Prince George, the first-born of William and Kate, were gay? How would his parents receive his first steady boyfriend, in the family and in public? What would a self-determined queer life look like for such a public figure? What impact would it have on queer communities worldwide? Where would there be violations, where utopias? Reflecting on personal attitudes and experiences, the performers create scenes of love, growing up and a society in transition.

"To the Light" ("To a Flame") by Erin Shields
translated from the English by Ulrike Syha
Erin Shields developed this fascinating text together with people with and without hearing ability. The result is a dense, multilingual, chilling parable about conditions in the patriarchy. The short story "The Fall of the House of Usher" by the master of gothic fiction, Edgar Allan Poe, served as a model. At the center are Madeline, Harriet and Fanny, who report on their harrowing experiences in the "House of the Father". From their female perspectives, they find a language to make it possible to experience how a society has dealt with "otherness" over the centuries. The text raises questions about female solidarity and whether violence can be combated with violence.