Held June 11 through 28, the international new play festival Zeitgeist: New Playwrights from Austria, Germany and Switzerland brings some of the most radical contemporary European plays and their authors to Washington D.C. and New York City for a series of staged readings. Arena Stage is proud to kick off the D.C. Zeitgeist festival and present a staged reading of Crazy Blood (Verrücktes Blut) by Jens Hillje and Nurkan Erpulat. Comically reducing virulent immigrant stereotypes to absurdity, Crazy Blood shows young second and third generation German-Turks on whom their teacher works off her educational mandate with a gun in her hand and Schiller’s Enlightenment ideal in her brain until all the clichés stand on their heads. Crazy Blood was invited to the 2011 Theatertreffen, received the Audience Award at the 2011 Mülheim Theatertage, and was chosen as play of the year in the Theater heute magazine critics' survey. Directed by Arena Stage Senior Directing Fellow Ameneh Bordi and featuring D.C. actors Lisa Hodsoll, Shannon Dorsey, Nikki Massoud, Felipe Cabezas, Jude Tibeau, Calvin McCullough, Mark Brown, Nora Achrati, and Enrico Nassi, this edgy dramedy explores identity and immigration through the lens of two of Germany's most innovative emerging writers.
Playwrights Jens Hillje (l) and Nurkan Erpulat (r) Director Ameneh Bordi
The staged reading of Crazy Blood will be held on Monday, June 11 at 7:00 p.m. in the Goethe-Institut Washington, located at 812 7th Street NW. The reading is free and open to the public. Please reserve seats by e-mailing rsvp@washington.goethe.org. RSVPs are encouraged due to limited seating. The playwrights, director and cast will lead a post-show discussion following the reading.
The Goethe-Institut Washington, the Embassy of Switzerland and the Austrian Cultural Forum, under the banner of the Zeitgeist DC, present three of Europe’s newest and edgiest plays by some of the most famous and influential playwrights writing today. Additional readings take place in Washington DC on June 18 and 25 (www.zeitgeistdc.org), and New York(www.zeitgeistnyc.tumblr.com). Curated by Gillian Drake.
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