Stückemarkt 2024

In the page's words:

მოგესალმებით! Welcome to the festival!

From April 26 to May 5, 2024, the Heidelberg Stückemarkt, one of the traditional festivals for contemporary theater, will take place for the 41st time. The guest country is Georgia, a country on the threshold of Europe, whose diverse cultural and theater scene is seriously threatened by the difficult political situation, restrictions and cutbacks. This makes it all the more important for us to offer Georgian artists a platform.

The plays nominated for the authors' competition cover a wide range of socially relevant topics such as integration, family trauma, mourning, artificial intelligence and the threat of right-wing radicalization. Despite the heavy topics, the texts often achieve a compelling lightness.

This year, the guest performances invited to the Stückemarkt - including from the Deutsches SchauSpielHaus Hamburg and Schauspiel Stuttgart - focus on the rewriting of ancient myths, from which authors such as Thomas Köck and Roland Schimmelpfennig draw highly topical aspects of generational conflicts and political responsibility.

In Georgia, the home of Medea and the setting of the Prometheus tragedy, adaptations of ancient myths are also among the current theater works. One example is "Medea s01e06" by Paata Tsikolia as a guest performance by the Royal District Theatre Tbilisi.

At the heart of the festival remain the competitions for the Author's Prize, the Youth Play Prize, the Post-Play Prize and the SWR2 Radio Play Prize. You, the audience, have the opportunity to vote. Don't miss out, be part of it! The Heidelberg Play Market 2024 program is rounded off by audience discussions, panel discussions, concerts and parties.

The theater festival

Over 10 days in spring, the Heidelberg Stückemarkt has been presenting the avant-garde of theater since 1984: new plays are read and outstanding world premieres from German-speaking countries are invited to guest performances. Social discourse is initiated and aesthetic trends in our theater landscape are reflected. The international highlight of the Heidelberg Play Market is the annually changing guest country - in 2024 it will be Georgia.

In addition to the guest performance program, the Heidelberg Play Market also hosts the highly acclaimed playwriting competition. Highly endowed prizes are awarded to young talents from German-speaking countries and the respective guest country. As part of the festival, the nominated plays are presented in readings with the Heidelberg Ensemble.

With the Nachspielpreis, productions that take a second look at plays that have already premiered are shown in the spirit of sustainable promotion of new drama. Young theater also has its own focus at the festival with the Youth Play Prize. The radio play prize, founded in 2021 in cooperation with SWR2, enables the production and first broadcast of an award-winning text in the following year. Since 2021, outstanding works of digital theater have also been presented in the "Netzmarkt" category.