Fast Forward 2025

Fast Forward ends with the ceremony for awards from the audience, the young jury and the festival jury. And then we’ll celebrate the final party together!

JURIES & AUDIENCE AWARD
A jury is a group of people who have been invited to publicly describe what they’ve seen. Of course there are always different perspectives on a production and that’s why it’s so interesting to hear about them. In 2025, there will again be a Fast Forward Young Jury: five young people and one mentor will visit the festival together and make their decision on the last night of the festival, as will the international jury of experts and the audience with the audience award. We’re looking forward to an awards ceremony with lots of different voices!

FESTIVAL JURY
On the last night, the international festival jury will award a prize to one of the eight festival productions. The festival award will consist of an invitation to a work residence in Dresden. The award is hosted by the Staatsschauspiel Dresden in cooperation with HELLERAU – European Center for the Arts. The 2025 festival jury includes a dramaturge and curator, a director and theatre manager, the artistic director of an international production house, a theatre critic, and a member of the acting ensemble of the Staatsschauspiel Dresden.

Carmen Hornbostel, *1991 near Hamburg, studied psychology in Göttingen and Seville in Spain. After working as an assistant dramaturge at the Deutsches Theater Berlin, she worked in the dramaturgy department of the Berliner Theatertreffen. In 2017, she was permanently employed at the International Institute of Political Murder (IIPM) run by Swiss theatre-maker Milo Rau and moved to the NTGent in Belgium when he was made artistic director there. She has been head of dramaturgy at the Wiener Festwochen since 2023.

Csaba Polgár, *1982 in Szikszó, studied acting at the University of Theatre and Film Arts in Budapest. He is a founding member of the theatre collective HOOPart, with whom he staged his first works as a director. He was invited to Fast Forward and Radikal jung in 2012 with his production KORIJOLÁNUSZ. He has been an actor and director in the ensemble of the Örkény István Theatre in Budapest since 2007, which he has been co-artistic director of with Máté Gáspár since 2025.

Carena Schlewitt, *1961 in Leipzig, is a dramaturge, curator and artistic director. She studied theatre studies at the Humboldt University Berlin, worked at the Academy of the Arts in East Berlin and subsequently worked at international producing theatres and festivals as a dramaturge, curator and artistic director in Berlin, Düsseldorf and Basel. She has been the artistic director of HELLERAU – European Centre for the Arts in Dresden since the 2018 / 2019 season.

Natasha Tripney, *1979 in Ashford, is a freelance writer and critic based in London and Belgrade. In 2011, she co-founded Exeunt, a platform for independent and experimental theatre criticism. She is the international editor of the British theatre magazine The Stage and writes for The Guardian and BBC Culture. She is the editor of SEEstage, an English-language online magazine about theatre in Southeast Europe, and writes the weekly European theatre newsletter Café Europa.

Which member of the Staatsschauspiel Dresden acting ensemble will be part of this year's festival jury will be announced here shortly.

FAST FORWARD YOUNG JURY 
A festival for young stage directors should have a young jury too. The young generation’s viewpoint is no doubt a very unique one. In art, in theatre, in storytelling, on and in front of the stage, it is also always about the resonating body that we are as the audience. It’s about the echo that a production triggers in us, whether that’s identification, distancing, sympathy or rejection, the experience of a new feeling or an intense encounter with an idea. Sometimes being the audience is work, theatre professionals know this very well. That’s why we’re happy to welcome five young people to the young jury again this year, who will watch all festival productions with professional support and also award a prize just like the festival jury. They’ll meet the artists, have discussions, give praise, applaud and enjoy the whole festival programme. At the award ceremony, the young jury will announce and explain their choice, and then the Fast Forward Young Jury Prize will be awarded once again!

AUDIENCE AWARD 
After four days of the festival, we would also like to ask you, the audience, which of the festival shows was most touching, surprising, provocative, inspiring or made you think. You can get your voting cards at each performance and voting cards for all productions from the admission staff in the Kleines Haus. Don’t forget: every vote counts!