Magnet Cities

The three cities of New York, Berlin and Tel Aviv, first founded as colonies, are paradigmatic for the type of open western metropolis that also serves as an intersection for global migratory movements at the beginning of the 21^st century. They are magnetic cities which attract immigrants, temporarily or permanently, for financial and political reasons, as well as for artistic reasons. Uncertain in their identities, these cities are in search of their definition and the meaning of their histories. They do not belong to the “natives”; they are culturally open for new arrivals.  

Modern Metropolises

With their promises of personal freedom and financial advancement, modern metropolises are the backbone and driving force of an open and democratic society that gives its members the opportunity for self-realization. They are the sites of the ambivalent promise of modern freedom in which individuality can be rediscovered or lost. Their open and fragile cultural identity makes these cities a showroom and laboratory of new developments in our modern societies far beyond their local and national traditions.

Immigrants

Temporary newcomers often include artists who see beyond the attractive openness of these cities to the rejections of history, the broken promises, the catastrophes of the past and today’s continuing conflicts. They find attraction and inspiration in the darker sides of history. Berlin and Tel Aviv are inseparably connected by the survivors of the Holocaust. New York and Berlin, alongside a large number of German immigrants and Berlin’s desire to be like New York, are also connected by two world wars and the liberation from Nazism. After the epochal fall of the Berlin Wall, Berlin has become an important location for artistic work and exchange for many young people from the United States and, more recently, for third generation Israelis as well.

The Project – The Playwrights

GTA will commission three playwrights from New York, Berlin and Tel Aviv to each write a piece set in one of the other cities. The first phase of the project will begin with meetings in each of the three cities, where the playwrights will present their hometowns to each other and work together to make the basic dramaturgical decisions. The character of the travelling adventure will serve as a leitmotiv for the commissioned plays: Perhaps he is on the run from an old love; perhaps he is being lured by a new love; or perhaps he is being driven by the search for his own self. He is a modern Odysseus, wandering through foreign cities.

The playwrights will live in their host city for three months during the second phase of the project, experiencing a strange new world and allowing their experiences to inform the characters and events of their plays. During their residency, they will continue to independently develop their texts as well as begin an artistic exchange with the director who will stage their play.

In the third phase of the project, the completed one-acts will be rehearsed by their respective artistic teams and receive their joint world premieres in Berlin. The production containers will then travel by ship to their premieres in New York and Tel Aviv.