DAY 2 | Lawscapes: Theater and the Anthropocene

'Lawscapes: Theater and the Anthropocene' is a collaborative two-day workshop in which participants will focus on entanglements between humans and nonhuman entities. How can theater help us think through and reimagine interspecies relationships -- as well as those between activists, artists and lawmakers? Imagine a court case with whales speaking on their own behalf. Which lawscapes are yet to come? We’d like to invite all participants to co-create theater that speaks to these and related questions.

In this day-long writing workshop, Kevin Rittberger will introduce some of the ideas that are central to his work as a playwright and lead participants through different group exercises and prompts. No writing, playwriting, or theater experience is necessary - all are welcome to attend!

While participants can drop in or leave the workshop at any time, we recommend that participants plan to stay for at least one full section of the day to get the most out of the workshop (see schedule above).

Please register in advance to help us plan accordingly.

This workshop is organized by the Anthropocene Lab, Germanic Studies (UIC), the Goethe-Institut Chicago, Prof. Mateusz Borowski, Prof. Oliver Sann (SAIC) and Kevin Rittberger.

Photo of 'Vom Zeugenschutz des Raubwürgers' by Philip Frowein.

BIO

Kevin Rittberger was born in 1977 in Stuttgart, Germany, and is a playwright, director, and curator based in Berlin. Rittberger's more than 20 plays have been staged at theaters such as the Deutsches Theater Berlin, Schauspielhaus Vienna, Schauspielhaus Hamburg, Residenztheater Munich, and the Maxim Gorki Theater Berlin. Notable works include Kassandra or The World as the end of the representation. In 2013 he directed his play „Mulian Rescues Mother Earth“ at the Taipei Arts Festival. As a performer he showed „UNL€ARNING WHITE NOISE“ together with Stefan Schneider at the Berliner Festspiele. In 2022 he co-organized the conference „Diffractive Word-Making: Theatre and Science Beyond the Capitalocene“ at the Indiana University Bloomington. His most recent shows were „Black Block“ (2020), „The Entrepreneur“ (2022), „Two Suns and a Setting“ (2023), „The Great Grey Shrike“ (Vom Zeugenschutz des Raubwürgers) and „Shredding Laws“ (2024).

Info: The day will open with a recap and exploration of ideas that are central to Rittberger's work, including 'lawscapes.'

Info: Participants will be broken up into groups of 5-6 people and begin working on creative responses to prompts drawn from subjects in Rittberger's plays, including the rights of nature, the language of whales, and the idea of 'interspecies diplomacy.'

Info: Participants will have the option to share what they produced with the larger group for feedback and reflection.

Host or Publisher Goethe-Institut Chicago