Write Now Berlin

It’s true that the text is, in a sense, incomplete until the actors bring it to life on a stage and introduce it to the audience. We presented a collection of our plays at the Kreuzberger HofFestSpiele in June and were very pleased with the reaction we got. The short pieces written in our workshops were not about numbers, facts, or how the world is horribly going to end soon due to the way we consume and choose to live. We mostly focused on personal stories and preferred a humorous tone over a pessimistic one. It’s good to remember how we used to live sustainably back in the days when we were kids. How we used to wear and share our clothes; how we used to mend our belongings before throwing them away and buying a new one; or how our relationship was with nature.

We will continue to write about climate change until the end of the year, and we hope to have more opportunities to share our plays with more people. We are open to collaborations with theatres, schools and or environmental organizations. The challenges we face need collaboration and collective action. We are all part of this story, and if it isn’t going well, we must begin rewriting it.

At the beginning of every year, my heart fills with excitement and fear. How many new people will join? Will they like this year’s programme? Will the workshops motivate them to write more? Most importantly will they get excited? I like it when people get excited. When they feel what they write matters, what they share has meaning for someone else.

We have completed half of this year’s workshops. We are non-stop writing about environmental issues. We go back in time, and remember how we used to consume and live when we were kids. What has changed? It’s quite scary to see how fast and easily we accepted and adapted to a consumerism-driven economic system. We’ve written a lot of pieces so far, and more will be added to this collective piece by the end of the year.

We will showcase some of this work at the Kreuzberger Hoffestspiele. The playreading will take place on the 22nd of June, Wednesday at 20:30 at the Expedition Metropolis Theatre. 

Three fantastic actors will read the piece. Bronwen Pattison, Cecilia Gigliotti, and Joshua Spriggs are wonderful additions to our team. We had our first rehearsal today, and they brought the entire text to life with just the first reading. I consider myself extremely fortunate and grateful to have met and to be working with such talented actors.

This year’s festival piece is written by:

Maria Vittoria Zinoni

Rebecca Lyon

A J Baker

Ece Ozdemiroglu

Tony Vale

Asena inceismail

Alice Rugai

Tom Kealy

Abdullah Öztürk

Storm Jackson-Payne

Natsu Hirukawa

Did you ever think about why some people refuse to believe in climate change? Why do they find excuses not to take meaningful action towards a sustainable life? Maybe denying the problem is a way of coping. The problem is so huge that the mind tries to save us from utter hopelessness by pushing aside thoughts of climate change. Denial kicks in as our minds default to temporary self-preservation.

It’s not because we don’t care. Climate change is disturbing. It’s something we don’t want to think about. So what we do in our everyday lives is create a world where it’s not there, and keep it distant. We create a sense of a good, safe world for ourselves, we screen out all kinds of information, from where food comes from to how our clothes are made. When we talk with our friends, we usually talk about something pleasant.

In our April workshop, we did an exercise called ‘I’m not a scientist but‘.
Would you like to try it?
Find three subjects that you have completely no idea about.
For example,
Marine biology
Cryptocurrency
German Grammar

Pick one subject. For example, you picked cryptocurrency. Write a monologue starting with
‘ I am not a broker but-’

The idea here is that you state your thoughts (whether for or against) on the subject which you have no idea about in a super confident way.

Have fun!