Entries by Katherine Lorimer

Theater
05/08/13 - 06/09/13
The Play Company at The New Ohio Theatre
154 Christopher Street
New York, NY 10014
In English
Tickets: $30-$40
(Use special code ZWANZIG for $20 tickets for performances through May 19)

In a tiny Asian take-out restaurant, a kitchen worker’s toothache leads to a botched extraction, blazing a trail of intrigue through the dining room and out into the world beyond. Hilarious and global, The Golden Dragon paints a surreal and haunting portrait of migration and human connection as five actors create a kaleidoscope of characters - from the restaurant’s employees, patrons and neighbors, to the insects at their feet.

Written by Berlin-based playwright Roland Schimmelpfennig (Arabian Night, Peggy Pickit Sees the Face of God), The Golden Dragon made its New York debut on May 8 under the direction of Ed Sylvanus Iskandar.

At 4:30pm on Sunday, May 12, directly following the 3:00pm matinee performance, The Play Company, in collaboration with Goethe-Institut New York and the German Consulate New York, will present a public Idea Lab conversation with the playwright Roland Schimmelpfennig, moderated by Frank Hentschker, Executive Director of the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center at the CUNY Graduate Center. They will discuss the play, Schimmelpfennig’s larger body of work, and German performance culture. This public conversation with Roland Schimmelpfennig requires no reservations or show tickets.

Visitors to the performance are also encouraged to download a free, 15-minute aural experience created by Sound Designer/Composer Katie Down. Designed to draw the audience into the world of the play, the Soundwalk starts and ends at The New Ohio Theatre and is best enjoyed just before a performance of The Golden Dragon.

Book Presentation
03/07/13
6:30pm
Austrian Cultural Forum
11 East 52nd Street
New York, NY 10022
Tel: +1 (212) 319-5300
Free
Reservation recommended

The Austrian Cultural Forum hosts an evening with author Hannes Stein on the subject of his new book, Der Komet (Galiani, 2013). Director of Deutsches Haus at NYU Martin Rauchbauer will talk with Mr. Stein about the underlying thoughts that constitute his novel as well as his motivation to write the book.

"What if?" This question is the central theme of Der Komet. What if Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand had not been shot in Sarajevo? What if the 20th century had never existed? What if the house of Hapsburg still existed today? What if Auschwitz had just been a railway junction in Galicia? What if the Germans had not started two World Wars and organized the largest genocide in history, but had settled the moon instead? What if Lenin had died in Zurich as an unknown journalist?

Hannes Stein (born 1965 in Munich) grew up in Salzburg. He studied English, American studies, and philosophy in Hamburg. After spending a long time in Israel, Stein immigrated to the US, where he currently lives in Riverdale, NY. He has worked as a journalist for various German newspapers and magazines (FAZ, Spiegel, Cicero, Merkur) and has been the editor of "Literarische Welt" in Berlin. At present, he works as cultural correspondent for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.

Martin Rauchbauer has been Director of Deutsches Haus at NYU since April 2011. He studied German studies and philosophy at the University of Vienna and has an M.A. in International Relations from the Johns Hopkins University.

The Goethe-Institut New York Library holds the following titles by Hannes Stein: Tschüß Deutschland!: Aufzeichnungen eines Ausgewanderten (Galiani, 2010) and Enzyklopädie der Alltagsqualen: ein Trostbuch für den geplagten Zeitgenossen (Eichborn, 2006).

Theater
02/24/13-03/31/13
Tuesdays-Saturdays at 7:30pm
Saturdays & Sundays at 2:30pm
Women’s Project Theater
City Center Stage II
131 West 55th Street
New York, NY 10019
Tickets: $60

Austrian Nobel laureate Elfriede Jelinek's play, Jackie, has its North American premiere in a translation by Gitta Honegger directed by Tea Alagic, as part of the Women's Project's 2012-13 Off-Broadway season. Jackie is an intensely theatrical dissection of Jackie Kennedy Onassis and the myths surrounding her well-coiffed veneer. Like Jelinek’s acclaimed novel, The Piano Teacher, Jackie is a disturbing exploration of submission, power, and the hypocrisy of everyday life.

There are a number of supplemental programs surrounding this production, including two post-show discussions with the creative team. Tonight, translator Gitta Honegger holds a talk titled "The Canon and Its Double: Elfriede Jelinek in Translation and Performance" at Barnard's Glicker-Milstein Black Box Theatre. On February 26, Deutsches Haus at NYU director Martin Rauchbauer will moderate a panel discussion on Jackie with Gitta Honegger and Tea Alagic at the Austrian Cultural Forum. And on March 4, the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center hosts "Staging Elfriede Jelinek’s Jackie (Austria) with The Women's Project Theater".

Reading and Discussion
02/26/13
7:30 pm
Embassy of Austria
3524 International Court NW
Washington, DC
In English and German
Free
RSVP to +1 (202) 895-6776 or the link below.
info@washington.goethe.org

Two of the authors from Festival Neue Literatur will travel to Washington, DC early next week. In his second novel, Schimmernder Dunst über CobyCounty (Shimmering Mist over CobyCounty), German author Leif Randt focuses on a privileged few living in an enclave of culture and well-being. As he plays with the longing for a better and more beautiful life, Randt succeeds in writing a light–hearted, enjoyable parody about the coziness of a well–oiled zone of existence that constantly celebrates and reproduces itself.

Swiss author Tim Krohn will present his latest book, Ans Meer (To The Sea). Set in Zurich and on the northern coast of Germany, the novel relates the story of two families who grow together, apart, and then together again. This moving and utterly compulsive read is about individuals coming to terms with their past, about guilt and atonement, forgiving and forgetting, and about embracing one's own fallibility in order to move on in life.

Leif Randt (b. 1983) lives in Berlin. For Schimmernder Dunst über CobyCounty he received the 2011 Ernst Willner Prize. Randt most recently received the Düsseldorf Literature Prize in 2012.

Tim Krohn (b. 1965) lives in Zurich, where he works as a freelance novelist and dramatist. He has been awarded numerous prizes and scholarships. Since the publication of his novel Quatemberkinder (1998), he has been considered a cult novelist in Switzerland and is extremely popular. Krohn’s last novel, Vrenelis Gaertli, reached No. 1 on the Swiss bestseller list.

Moderated by Norbert Bärlocher, Cultural Attaché, Embassy of Switzerland.

The event will conclude with a reception with Austrian, German and Swiss delicacies provided by the Goethe-Institut, the Embassy of Switzerland, and the Austrian Cultural Forum Washington.

Readings, Workshops and Round Table with German Authors
02/21/13-02/23/13
University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA
Readings: Amado Recital Hall, 3401 Spruce
Other Events: Houston Hall, 3417 Spruce
Tel: +1 (215) 898-8606
E-mail: german@ccat.sas.upenn.edu

In a trip organized by the Literarisches Colloquium Berlin and supported by the German Ministry for Foreign Affairs, the authors Maria Cecilia Barbetta, Nora Bossong, Sherko Fatah and Selim Özdogan as well as the literary critic Jutta Person will travel through the US at the end of this month to discuss trends in German contemporary literature and read excerpts from their work. While some of these authors were not born in Germany and had to learn German as a second language, all of them now write in German and have been awarded prizes for their work. The group will first appear at the GermanWorlds conference at the University of Pennsylvania from February 21-23. On February 26, they will present on the topic of Mein Deutsch-Contemporary Voices in German Literature at Wellesley College in the afternoon, followed by an evening program at the Goethe-Institut Boston.

Theater
02/11/13-02/16/13
Dorothy B. Williams Theatre
HERE
145 Sixth Aveue
New York, NY 10013
Tickets: $25
Box office: +1 (212) 352-3101
In German

Acclaimed Austrian actress Mercedes Echerer plays an astounding 32 characters in this remarkable one-woman play, an adaptation by Verena Kurth from the novel Karriere by Austrian author Robert Neumann.

Set in the 1920s, this is the story of Erna, a girl from the countryside who ingratiates herself with the right people, climbing the social ladder to the top and spinning the big wheel of politics and economy. Mercedes Echerer plays Erna and all of the 31 men and women she encounters along her adventurous path, which leads her all over Europe and introduces her to a vivid array of people, cities, and facts of life. Die (irr)witzige, (halb)seidene Karierre des Fräulein Erna is a fulminant solo evening full of laughter and contemplation. The play is directed by Rupert Henning, with musical accompaniment provided by violinist Aliosha Biz. Do not miss this singular opportunity to experience this highly successful German-language production.

As we wind down the work week, Edna and I would like to wish you and yours all the best for the Holidays!

We'll be back with all sorts of German literature goodness in the New Year.

Screenings & Conversation
10/29/12
Martin E. Segal Theatre
CUNY Graduate Center
365 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10016
Tel.: +1 (212) 817-1860
Email: mestc@gc.cuny.edu
Free

CUNY's Martin E. Segal Theatre welcomes Helgard Haug, Stefan Kaegi, and Daniel Wetzel, the artists of Berlin-based artists' collective Rimini Protokoll, for a retrospective of their cutting-edge performance work. Straddling the lines between reality and fiction, they create participatory documentary theater experiences in which actual subjects tell their own stories, voice their own opinions, and illustrate their own circumstances.

Starting at 3pm, recent major works, such as Wahl Kampf Wallenstein, Prometheus in Athens, and the 100% series, will be screened. This will be followed by a conversation at 6:30pm between the Rimini Protokoll artists and noted participatory performance scholar Claire Bishop of the CUNY Graduate Center, moderated by Frank Hentschker.

Should you be interested in further reading, our Library holds the following Rimini Protokoll monograph: Experten des Alltags: das Theater von Rimini-Protokoll (Alexander Verlag, 2007).