Wolfram Lotz’s The Ridiculous Darkness. Production of the Burgtheater, Vienna. Photo by Georg Hochmuth.

Monday, March 21
Segal Theatre
6:30pm Reading + Discussion

FREE + Open to public. First come, first served.

Germany’s much lauded emerging playwright will be at the Segal Center to talk about his work and the German theatre scene. His play, The Ridiculous Darkness, is inspired by Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now and current events, ranging from piracy in Somalia to the war in Afghanistan. Mining the absurdities of our postcolonial world, Lotz sheds light on Western society’s inability to comprehend the realities of distant warzones and global trade. The piece, which Lotz wrote as a radio play, premiered at the Burgtheater Vienna in 2014 and was invited to the prestigious Theatertreffen Berlin in 2015. In the same year, Lotz received the Nestroy Theatre Prize and was named Playwright of the Year by the theatre magazine Theater heute.

In collaboration with the Goethe-Institut (Dr. Wenzel Bilger, Director of Cultural Programs North America), the Segal Center presents a staged reading of The Ridiculous Darkness, directed by Big Dance Theater Co-Artistic Director Paul Lazar and translated by Daniel Brunet, followed by a discussion with the playwright Wolfram Lotz.

Wolfram Lotz, born 1981 in Hamburg, grew up in the Black Forest region. He studied literature, art, and media science in Konstanz and creative writing at the Deutsches Literaturinstitut in Leipzig. He writes plays, audio plays, lyric and prose and received several awards, including the Kleist Award for his play DER GROSSE MARSCH (The Big March).

Paul Lazar is a founding member and co-artistic director, along with Annie-B Parson, of Big Dance Theater. He has co-directed and acted in works for Big Dance since 1991, including commissions from the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Walker Art Center, Dance Theater Workshop, among others.