News

The third edition of Shakespeare is dead was a success. After a first edition in Leuven 2022 and a second in Amsterdam (2023), the international and Dutch-language playwrighting world was once again in Leuven from 13 to 17 February 2024. We are already looking forward to the next edition in Amsterdam on 4, 5 and 6 April 2025!

This was Shakespeare is dead 2024

AFTERMOVIE

READING ROOM

The beating heart of the festival

Shakespeare is dead puts the contemporary playwright in the spotlight. At its centre is a selection of twenty new theatre texts: ten international texts and ten Dutch-language texts from Flanders and the Netherlands. Excerpts from these texts were presented to an audience of professionals and enthusiasts during staged readings in our Reading Room.

Amir Gudarzi (Austria) Wonderbomb
Uma Nada Rajah (Schotland) Exodus
Sami Ibrahim (UK) Two Palestinians Go Dogging
Tena Štivičić (Croatia) Three Winters
Ella Hickson (UK) The Writer
Paula Thielecke (Germani) Judith Shakespeare — Rape and Revenge
Sebastián Eddowes-Vargas (Peru) Wounds of the City
Kaveh Ayreek (Afghanistan) The Empty Suitcase
Natalka Vorozhbyt (Ukrain) Bad Roads
Thomas Depryck (Belgium, Wallonia) Macadam Circus

 

Jibbe Willems Age of Rage
Magne van den Berg Liefdesverklaring (voor altijd)
Rebekka De Wit & Anoek Nuyens De Zaak Shell
Peer Wittenbols Trojan Wars
Esther Duysker & Floor Houwink ten Cate Sea of Silence
Tine Van Aerschot Ik maak me geen illusies en dit is er een van
Femke Van der Steen Mater
Thomas Bellinck & Said Reza Adib De Stem van Vingers
Annelies Verbeke Daar gaan we weer (White Male Privilege)
Mokhallad Rasem Dagboek van een leeg bed


Find out more about the authors by clicking here. Are you a theatre professional and would you like to read (excerpts) from the selected texts in various (new) translations? If so, please contact us at info@shakespeareisdead.com

SCRATCHNIGHT


Watch and listen as writers and actors jam out and discover new theatre texts in a jazz club setting. The ideal end to a day of Shakespeare is Dead.

 

photo: Robin Todde

OPENING NIGHT

photo: Robin Todde

The State of the Playwright by Rebekka de Wit

The only place where that is possible, to claim something and then completely the opposite, and that the two then do not cancel each other out, but somehow hold each other in a shaky balance, that many things can be true at the same time, that can only be done here.

Read Rebekka de Wit's full State of the Playwright here

photo: Robin Todde

FUTURE NARRATIVES LABS

FUTURE NARRATIVES FOR PLANET EARTH is a European network of 5 theatre festivals and 2 NGOs working in the fields of culture and education. By thinking about new stories in theatre, the network aims to recapture the future as a space of possibility.

During Shakespeare is dead, you could discover a number of theatre texts labelled future narratives by us. The State of the Theatre Writer also had this theme as its starting point. During two labs, we explored theatre writing and cultural organisations in times of climate crisis.

photo: Robin Todde

DEBATES & TABLE TALKS

photo: Robin Todde

SEARCHLIGHT SESSIONS

photo: Het nieuwstedelijk

FESTIVAL ATMOSPHERE

photo: Robin Todde

CLOSING NIGHT: OVER DE TONG, OVER DE LIPPEN

 

With Annelies Verbeke, Jan Decorte & Sigrid Vinks, Freek Mariën, Frank Siera, Mokhallad Rasem, Peer Roosen, Rashif El Kaoui, Sara Vertongen, Prince K. Appiah, Matthias Van de brul, Tom Van Bauwel, Kris Cuppens, Eline Kuppens en muzikanten Myrthe Luyten, Bert Hornikx en Joris Caluwaerts.

An evening curated byChristophe Aussems & Sara Vertongen

photo: Het nieuwstedelijk

CARL ZUCKMAYER SCHOLARSHIP - Call

CARL ZUCKMAYER SCHOLARSHIP - Call

In 2023, the Ministry of the State of Rhineland-Palatinate will for the first time award the CARL ZUCKMAYER SCHOLARSHIP to promote contemporary European drama and the memory of the political German playwright Carl Zuckmayer.

The scholarship is addressed to playwrights living in Europe who have already written at least one theatre play that has been staged already. The working scholarship is intended to enable them to write a play on a socially relevant, European topic with financial security. 

Download the call!