Dramenprozessor
Food for the theatre
Swiss Theatre Award 2015
Established in 2000 as a workshop for budding playwrights, Dramenprozessor has grown into one of the most enduring and consistent author programmes in the German-speaking world, providing vital input for the work of the independent theatre scene. Its participants have received numerous prizes and awards: Darja Stocker, for example, won the Heidelberger Stückemarkt in 2005 with “Nachtblind”. Already staged more than twenty times, her first work has also been translated into a number of languages. In 2013, Katja Brunner won the Dramatikerpreis – the most important prize for dramatists in the German-speaking world – at the Mülheimer Theatertage with the Dramenprozessor piece “Von den Beinen zu kurz”. Other attendees, such as Gerhard Meister, Jens Nielsen, Simon Froehling, Matto Kämpf, Reto Finger, Daniela Janjic, Stefanie Grob, Sabine Wang and Livia Huber, are now well-known theatre authors and are on the lists of theatrical publishers.
Dramenprozessor was the brainchild of the then head of the Theater an der Winkelwiese, Peter-Jakob Kelting, who carried out the project with substantial support from Migros Culture Percentage and in collaboration with the director and dramaturge Erik Altorfer, other theatres and writers’ associations as well as Pro Helvetia. Between 2002 and 2015 Stephan Roppel, Kelting’s successor, has expanded Dramenprozessor as its overall director, along with Altorfer as artistic director. During this time, Roppel has established links between Dramenprozessor and a series of theatres in Switzerland, switching the project to a biennial schedule in order to maintain quality. A key element of the concept is that authors are guided through the process of developing their works, which are then performed in partner theatres. From summer 2015, Manuel Bürgin takes charge of the Winkelwiese and Dramenprozessor.
