Fast Forward 2025

Annually in November, Fast Forward, the European festival for young stage directors, invites young directors from all over Europe to Dresden for four days. In this setting many of the emerging artists have their first encounters with an audience in another country that speaks another language – a meeting marked by excited expectation. Not only that: they make contact with other theatre-makers from their generation from other countries and, together with professionals, the press, students and trainees, share different perspectives on theatre and its artistic and social potential.

Fast Forward is a festival for beginnings, a festival that brings people together and facilitates working partnerships. As platform for emerging theatre artists this festival is still unique: in the artistic range of works it shows and in the audiences it reaches for the artists invited. Not only the festival jury – newly assembled every year and awarding one of the directing teams with a prize on the last day – is fostering young talent practically. In the supporting programme, students and graduates from European theatre academies meet international experts in changing constellations. The exchange between the artists is the basis for new networks and discussions about the theatre of the future. And most importantly, the audience is invited to join in the conversation too and cast its vote with the Audience Award. As is the Young Jury, which was established in 2022.

In collaboration with its partners, the Dresden University of Fine Arts, HELLERAU– European Centre for the Arts, the Hole of Fame and others, Fast Forward presents a multi-voiced Europe in the centre of Dresden – with German and English surtitles, of course – a theatre festival for those who are just starting out and a festival that is full of surprises and shows that there is a future for theatre.

WELCOME TO FAST FORWARD

Fast Forward 2025 proves: theatre is not a place to retreat away from reality – it’s a space where our times resonate. In eight productions, young people ask questions that will definitely not only resonate with their generation. Using the media of theatre, they bring them into our focus because they are searching for a way to deal with their urgency. Issues such as the working world, the mechanisms of journalistic reporting, the formation of narratives about what a tragedy is and the strategies that can help us to adopt an attitude to the things the world confronts us with.
The fewer places of retreat the world provides, the more spaces for resonance it needs: to come together, to exchange ideas, to contradict, to confirm, to reflect on the world together. The theatre is such a space. And Fast Forward is a place for young voices that have something to say – artistically, politically, bravely. Welcome to four days of theatre with attitude. Welcome to Fast Forward 2025.

Yours

Barbara Klepsch
State Minister of Saxony for Culture and Tourism

LOOKING AT REALITY

“Reality is theatre. What the politicians do, what is now considered acceptable by the social system, that’s the real theatre. So let’s open our eyes and see that it’s staged. Let’s develop mechanisms to finally see that staging again,” wrote director Christoph Schlingensief, who died fifteen years ago. As a festival for work by young European stage directors, Fast Forward offers the opportunity to really take a look at our contemporary societies using the tools of theatre and to get to know the artistic language of the next generation of directors. Questioning society and politics through the means of theatre is an art, and an intellectual and actorly achievement, that can make us think and give us orientation.
I would like to express my thanks to the Staatsschauspiel Dresden and the cooperating theatres in Dresden for the organisation of this special festival. I would also like to wish all the visitors and participants a rich and inspiring theatre festival!

Annekatrin Klepsch
Mayor for Culture, Science and Tourism of the State Capital Dresden

ON THE HUMAN SCALE

Eight productions from Italy, Finland, France, Germany, Slovenia and the Netherlands are coming to Dresden for this year’s edition of Fast Forward. The stories, themes and questions they bring with them have arisen out of individual and personal perspectives. When a young generation of theatre-makers sees storytelling and acting in the theatre, with an audience as their counterpart, as important, it may have something to do with the fact that the currently prevailing policies of war, power, competition and the restoration of old hierarchies and inequality can hardly be expected to produce anything useful for the future. Perhaps, after this “historical turning point”, there is a remedy growing against the widespread backward slide in Europe, where people come together in the same room to exchange a few words, thoughts and experiences completely outside the mainstream. After all, you have to pick up again somewhere. We warmly welcome you to the ninth edition of Fast Forward, the European Festival for Young Stage Directors.

Joachim Klement
Artistic Director Staatsschauspiel Dresden

Charlotte Orti von Havranek
Curator Fast Forward

Artistic Director & Curator Charlotte Orti von Havranek Production Management Heli Meisterson Production Assistance Kyra Alena Mevert Coordination Volunteers Johanna Trento Technical Coordination Silman Graßelt, Pauline Malack Technical Management Peter Keune Team Staatsschauspiel Dresden Bodo Garske, Jens Sweikowski (Head of Technical Department), Andreas Barkleit (Head of Lighting & Video), William Sonntag (Deputy Head of Lighting & Video), Thomas Kohlert (Video), Manja Schreyer (Head of Sound), Manuela Wustmann (Construction), Ulrike Huste (Head of Wardrobe), Heike Jordan (Head of Props), Tatjana Richter (Head of Makeup), Michael Kaltenhäuser (Technical Manager Probebühnenzentrum) Team HELLERAU – European Centre for the Arts Charlotte Keck (Production Management), Patrick Lauckner, Benjamin Henrichs (Head of Stage), Matthias Remlinger (Lightning Supervisor), Till Seigfried (Head of Sound & Media), Johannes Petzold (Deputy Head of Sound & Media) Team Labortheater & HfBK Ronald Scheurich (Management Labortheater) & Harald Büttner Team Hole of Fame e.V. Tommy Rülke Surtitles Panthea Greetings, show programme and supporting programme texts translated into English Anna Galt Texts "easy read" Anja Dworski (Office for Plain Language Lebenshilfe Sachsen e.V.) Press & Public Relations Franziska Blech Graphic Design Andrea Dextor Ticket Handling Birgit Kaltenhäuser Fast Forward-Trailer & Film David Campesino Editing Performance Trailers Lilli Wiesner Photography Sebastian Hoppe Website www.fastforw.art 2022 – 2025 Kristian Andresen

Special thanks go to everyone at Staatsschauspiel Dresden and the partner venues who are making this festival happen.