Play Readings: Remembering Playwright and Director RENÉ POLLESCH
Thu, May 30
|Martin E. Segal Center CUNY
Join us for an evening celebrating the life and work of the late playwright and director René Pollesch, with readings of his plays "Heidi Hoh" and "Insourcing at Home. People in Crappy Hotels."
Time & Location
May 30, 2024, 6:30 PM – 8:30 PM EDT
Martin E. Segal Center CUNY, 365 5th Ave, New York, NY 10016, USA
Guests
About the event
Remembering Playwright and Director
RENÉ POLLESCH
Volksbühne Berlin, Germany
LIVE / IN PERSON
Free + Open to the public
Segal Theatre, 365 Fifth Ave @ 34 St.
Join us for an evening celebrating the life and work of the late playwright and director René Pollesch who died unexpectedly at age 61. New York theatre artist Matt Gasda and his ensemble from the Brooklyn Center for Theatre Research will be joined by David Levine for readings of two Pollesch plays Heidi Hoh (translated by Rose Riggs) and Insourcing at Home. People in Crappy Hotels (translated by David Tushingham.)
Readings in English followed by a panel with Matt Gasda, David Levine and others. Moderated by Frank Hentschker.
"René Pollesch, a prolific playwright and stage director whose work—intellectually serious yet irreverent, chatty, goofy and riddled with pop-culture references—made him one of the most significant forces in German theater of the past three decades, died on Monday in Berlin. He studied under Andrzej Wirth and Hans-Thies Lehmann at the legendary Institute for Applied Theatre Studies in Gießen, Germany. He was 61. His sudden death was announced by the Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz theater, where he had been artistic director since 2021. Pollesch wrote roughly 200 plays and directed virtually all of them himself, often at leading theaters in the German-speaking world. But while his plays lit up stages in places like Stuttgart, Hamburg, Vienna and Zurich, he was most closely associated with the Volksbühne, a publicly funded playhouse in what once was East Berlin that had a reputation for making daring and provocative theater." (A.J. Goldmann, New York Times)
Special thanks to Nils Tabert, Head of Rowohlt Theater Verlag, Germany. With the support and in cooperation with the Goethe-Institute New York, Jörg Schumacher.
DIRECTORS
Matthew Gasda (Heidi Hoh) is a playwright and director and the founder of the Brooklyn Center for Theater Research. His first collection Dimes Square and Other Plays is available from Applause, and his next collection Zoomers and Other Plays will be released in 2025. His newest play, Morning Journal, has just begun its run at the BCTR.
David Levine (Insourcing . . .) is an OBIE and Guggenheim-award winning director and visual artist. His work has been covered by Frieze, Artforum, and The New York Times, and his writing has appeared in n+1, Theater, and Parkett. He is Professor of the Practice of Performance, Theater and Media at Harvard University, and the author, with Shonni Enelow, of A Discourse on Method, published by 53rd State Press. His holographic film, Dissolution, premiered at the Museum of the Moving Image last October. His eulogy for Rene Pollesch is forthcoming in Theater.
ACTORS
SOPHIA ENGLESBERG an actor and producer. A graduate of Mason-Gross School of the Arts and Shakespeare's Globe. Most recently she has appeared in ZOOMERS as Ella, Morning Journal, Ardor, and Afters.
Izabel Mar(she/they) Film: Babygirl, Showing Up (a24), Year of the Fox (SIFF), FBI: Most Wanted. Off-Broadway: MAC BETH (Red Bull), Clubbed Thumb, The Public Theatre. New York: Joan of Arc in a Supermarket in California, galatea 2.0 (InvulNos), Audible, Improvised Buffy. Regional: Stacyby Ruby Rae Spegiel, MAC BETH (Seattle Rep). Reps: Authentic, Daniel Hoff. She is a founding member of The Brooklyn Center for Theatre Research. @izzyetc, izabelmar.com
George Olesky is an actor, writer, educator, and founding member of The Brooklyn Center for Theatre Research in Greenpoint. Ten collaborations with Matthew Gasda since 2021. Further theater credits include Roundabout, The Vineyard, Bedlam, Rattlestick, People's Light, Trinity Rep, SpeakEasy Stage, Epic Theater Ensemble, Dixon Place, Bay Street Theater, & A Noise Within. George can be seen in works for Netflix, AppleTV+, Amazon Prime, ABC, FOX, CBS, and Starz. Actor in Residence at Maine Media Workshops since 2018. Recipient of the Brown in the World Grant for a performing arts research fellowship in Berlin, serving as a graduate assistant to Bard College Berlin’s inaugural Summer Theater Intensive. His ongoing solo work Joan premiered at the legendary Beckett’s in 2022. MFA from Brown University/Trinity Rep. @george.olesky
Renee Nicole Powell is a recent Graduate of the Tisch School of the Arts. She starred in Matthew Gasda's Zoomers and is producing BCTR's current show, Morning Journal.
Claire Siebers is a writer, actor, and filmmaker. Select theatre: Mary Gets Hers (Playwrights Realm/MCC), New Golden Age (Primary Stages), Georgia Mertching is Dead (EST), Events (The Hearth), Agnes (Lesser America), The Workshop (softFocus), LA Party (UTR, Fusebox), and productions with Actors Theater of Louisville, Williamstown, Clubbed Thumb, New Group, LAByrinth, The Whitney Museum. Film/Television: Gossip Girl, The Blacklist, and countless indie narrative shorts. Education: Yale, Juilliard. New Georges Affiliated Artist. clairesiebers.com
Tessa Weinland is a recent graduate of the Carnegie Mellon University School of Drama (2023). Performances for CMU include Hamlet, Woyzeck, and You On the Moors Now. NYC work includes LCT3 and Brooklyn Center for Theatre Research. Regional work: Seattle Public Theater, Seattle Shakespeare Company. She has also studied with LAMDA and the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. Rep: Brave Artists Management, Henderson Hogan. @tessaweinland
Photo Daniel Karmann / dpa. Courtesy Goethe Institute New York.