THE PROJECT

This project started in New York City, talking about Black Lifes and the difference to Germany to the US. In Germany race and racism, has a different sound to it, a different horrible past. But the silence about racism, didn't destroy the discrimination of people in Germany, it made it more structural and subtle. Not just the politics have to face this issue, but the everyday people, parents, teachers, friends and all the people who represent others. We asked ourselves as Theaterartist, what can we do? How are we taking part in this stereotypical way of representing, of telling stories and repeating the habits of old traditions? We had to ask ourselves, had to look into the practice of theater in Germany and the US, we looked into media and representation in general and wanted to break those stereotypical ways of thinking. 

This is a process, we just started and we hope to win more and more people to share this reflection on ourselves and the human behavior of discrimination and judgment. How can we not fall into the trap of just traditional behavior, that sets us as humans apart and doesn't bring us together? We would love, to have you support us, with your insights, with your own perspective, with your hopes and dreams, with your critics and worries - we are looking for inclusion and a common community, where we will discover new ways of living together. 

Hedda Gabler, and many other 'classical' plays in German Theaters are cast White Actors only. The stereotypical idea, that these roles have to have a certain skin color is still strongly represented, but not talked about. We will cast this wonderful play of Henrik Ibsen (Set: Kristiania, Norway. 1870's) with an all Afro-German ensemble and want to change the closed up perspectives of an idea, that skin color detects the character. The character and soul is made out of other material than skin. But living in a world where race still matters, due that past and present of our behavior - we can't just ignore the fact, that racism isn't alive. It will grow underneath, if we don't take it by it's horn and ask ourselves, what is our common responsibility?! 

Please help us to bring awareness into the media world, of how powerful representation is, and how we form our thinking, with they way we tell stories.

How you can help?

As you might know, Theater and Performance is a fugitive moment, that you can not really take with you. The thing you will take with you, is the experience of that moment, that made you laugh, cry or be angry. It can be so powerful, that this moment could change your life, or will hit you like BAM - one day, suddenly and you still carry that magic this art form with you.

To do this work, we need money, to focus our time and craft on those issues, we want to reflect on. We need to space, to rehearse in. We need platforms to share it with a large audience. We need equipment to make it more powerful, if needed and we need you as the supporters to help us make this happen.  

The process

 In August 2016 we will hold an intense workshop in Berlin, to create the our own adaption of the play, we will read, talk and discuss the issues of the play and beyond. Then we will explore a sight specific blocking, where the lines between performer and audience is reduced and maybe even, at some moments removed. We will have after talks with the audience and will explore also in conversation, what is means to have an all Black Cast in an classical play in Germany. What perspectives will we discover there? You are invited to be part of this process and we hope to see you there!!

In 2017 we then continue our journey in co-production with a German Theater and will present Hedda Gabler in Berlin to a large audience. With luck and support, we might come along your town too! But maybe you would love to visit us in Berlin too.

To make this all happen, we need your support!!

Every cent is helpful and will support us in this journey! 

THANK YOU!!!!!

DANKE!!!!!!

WHO WE ARE?

Label Noir: 
The Afro-German artist collective label Noir was founded in Berlin in 2009, artistic directors are the actresses Lara-Sophie Milagro and Dela Dabulamanzi. Label Noir sees one of its main tasks, to create an artistic space where skin color and/or origin of Black Actors, are not limited to generate strangeness and exoticism, while the skin color and/or origin White Actors has universal significance. Behind this is the desire for a theater where the Actor may not embody their skin color, but their humanity. Playing theater is a privilege, a powerful activity that we want to use to reveal new perspectives. We believe that a change of perspective on stage can cause a change of perspective in real life. A look at the history of theater - the latest example is in Germany in 2011 for the first time made publicly, critically discussed blackface uf our stages - nourishes this faith.
www.labelnoir.net

​The Private Theatre:
The Private Theatre is a not-for-profit group of Artists committed to raw, intimate and startling productions of classical, contemporary and devised work. They believe that authorial initiative in the theater can emerge from any theatrical discipline; that deeper collaborations create better theater; and that those collaborations may be forged across cultures, aesthetics and disciplines. In common with all the arts, theater should aspire to work that affects its audiences deeply, engaging them in encounters that make a profound and ensuring impression. They embrace this mission, and devote themselves to finding the texts, stagecraft and collaborators to support them in its pursuit.
www.theprivatetheatre.org

Label Gray: 
Label Gray was founded in 2011 as The Shades Of Gray by Heidi Mueller-Smith and Miriam Ibrahim, who met during the production Escape From Happiness, in which Heidi was directing and Miriam was acting. Both became dear Friends and shared the vision to create a space where people and their issues aren't labeled as black or white, where diversity and complexity is celebrated. A platform where we could go on the hunt for the truth which lies in the gray - an area where the lines and borders are blurry, that blurriness we want not to become straightened and 'normal' we want to see with it and grow beyond borders.
www.labelgray.org
 

The Director:

John Gould Rubin is a founding member of The Private Theatre for which he currently serves as Artistic Director. Recent projects for the company include a radically explicit deconstruction of Strindberg’s one-act Playing with Fire, staged at The Box (the notorious sexual night club) and the 2010 site-specific production of Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler staged in a 19th c townhouse for 25 people per night. This season he presented and directed Turn Me Loose, a presentation of the comedy, activism and life of Dick Gregory with Joe Morton starring as the legendary black comedian.  He recently staged Outside Mullingar for the Dorset Theatre Festival and the premiere of Michael Ricigliano’s Queen For A Day off Broadway and an environmental production of The Cherry Orchard for The Actors Studio with Ellen Burstyn in which he surrounded the audience with the action of the play. He is in development with I, Peer, a re-imagining of Ibsen’s Peer Gynt which he workshopped at the International Ibsen Festival at The National Theatre of Norway and at The Old Vic in London; Electra Despierta/Awakes, by renowned Mexican playwright Ximena Escalante, developed in a bi-lingual version through CalArts. He commissioned a new translation of Brecht’s second play, Drums in the Night, which he has been developing with Classical Theater of Harlem and LAByrinth Theater Company. John served as Co-Artistic (with John Ortiz and Philip Seymour Hoffman) and Executive Director of LAByrinth, for which he directed the premieres of Philip Roth in Khartoum and Penalties & Interest (both as part of Public/LAB at The Public Theater); STopless; The Trail of Her Inner Thigh by Erin Cressida Wilson; John Patrick Shanley's A Winter Party; and co-created and directed two devised pieces: Dreaming in Tongues; and Mémoire. Other projects co-created or directed include The Erotica Project for The Public Theatre; Trial By Water for Ma-Yi; A Taste of Honey at Playwrights Horizons; Blood in the Sink at Urban Stages; both A Matter Of Choice and NAMI for Partial Comfort; Rinne Groff’s The Ruby Sunrise, Dark of the Moon, Rebecca Gilman’s The Land of Little Horses; Frank McGuiness’ Factory Girls; Timberlake Wertenbaker’s Three Birds Alighting on a Field, Ivanov, The Crucible, Richard Nelson’s Franny’s Way, David Mamet’s Boston Marriage, Picnic, Israel Horvitz’ North Shore Fish, Reza de Wet’s Three Sisters, Two and Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead for the Stella Adler Conservatory; a radical Hamlet with 7 Hamlets for Columbia’s MFA Program, and he has directed for both EST’s and Naked Angel’s Marathons. This season he will direct an environmental production of Mother Courage for The Harold Clurman Lab which also produced his two-theater production of “The Seagull,” and he recently directed a multi-media, stage adaptation of “Double Indemnity” for The Old Globe in San Diego; Riding the Midnight Express, Billy Hayes’ personal tale of imprisonment and escape in Turkey (memorialized in the film Midnight Express,) at the Edinburgh Festival, off-Broadway and at the Soho Theater in London; the Off-Broadway production of The Fartiste, a musical he also premiered for The Private Theatre in 2006 at the New York International Fringe Festival (winner of Outstanding Musical award); Jack's Back, a new musical about Jack the Ripper; Open Marriage (a site-specific, one-woman show about Elsie Clews Parsons at Venfort Hall, in Lenox, Mass., in co-production with Shakespeare & Co.); Little Doc at Rattlestick, The Importance of Being Ernest for Twin Tiers Theatre; and In the Daylight at the McGinn-Cazale. He wrote (and played Ivan Boesky in) The Predators' Ball (collaborating with Karole Armitage and David Salle) for the Teatro Comunale in Florence, Italy, and at BAM's Next Wave Festival.  Mr. Rubin is in development of three unique devised theater pieces, one about Sargent Shriver and the development of The Peace Corps; another about the political polarization of America based upon the consciousness philosophy of Bernard Lonergan and a third on the iconoclastic life of Erik Satie. He directed his first film, Almost Home, for Trigger Street Independent, which was presented at The Berkshire Film Festival.

The Ensemble:

Lara-Sophie Milagro as Hedda Gabler

Tyron Rickets as Commissioner Brack

Asad Schwarz-Msesilamba as Eilert Løvborg

Dela Dabulamansi as Juliane Tesman

Miriam Ibrahim as Thea Elvsted

Maya Alban-Zapata as Berte