World Voices: LISA WENTZ (Austria)

Join us for an evening with Lisa Wentz (Austria) for a reading of her new play The Evening before the Ever After (working title, from the German "Der Abend vor dem Danach".

About the play:

A dinner party at a wealthy financier's villa becomes the stage for a slow-burning reckoning: Luca, an ambitious young banker, arrives with his wife Irene to celebrate a career-defining deal with his boss Gabriel — but Gabriel's mysterious new girlfriend Alexandra turns out to be a woman Luca raped five years earlier. Over the course of the evening, as pleasantries curdle into confrontation, Alexandra methodically dismantles the men's world of denial, money, and mutual protection, while Irene — caught between loyalty, fury, and self-preservation — ultimately cannot or will not act.

Lisa Wentz is a playwright. Born in Austria, she completed her acting training in Vienna in 2017 before going on to earn a degree in Scenic Writing from the Berlin University of the Arts in 2022.

Her work has been performed at leading German-language stages, including the Volksbühne Berlin, the Burgtheater Vienna, and the Theater in der Josefstadt. Her play Aschewolken received a special prize at the German Children's and Youth Theatre Award in 2020, and Adern won both the Retzhofer Drama Prize 2021 and the Nestroy Award for Best Play 2022, with its world premiere at the Burgtheater Vienna. In 2023, she was awarded the Contemporary Arts Alliance Award Berlin for her artistic work.

Most recently, her play Azur oder die Farbe von Wasser premiered at the Theater in der Josefstadt in January 2025, and Verräter had its world premiere at the Landestheater Linz in February 2026. She lives and works in Vienna.