Playground

Our London Residency left us buzzing — full of new ideas, fresh connections, and a deep sense of what can happen when artists come together across borders! From rehearsals and workshops to industry conversations and our final sharing at Jermyn Street Theatre in the West End, the residency offered space to listen, question, test ideas, and connect. At every stage, we were reminded how powerful international collaboration can be when artists and organisations come together with curiosity, care, and openness.

We were especially grateful to our partners at Foreign Affairs for their generosity and hospitality, and for making this London chapter of PLAYGROUND such a meaningful one.

Across the week, we developed fragments of Road Trip by Andreea Tănase and Quiet Hours from Two to Six by Sofija Dimitrijević and Tara Mitrović. The pieces were directed by Flo Dessau and Ria Samartzi, and performed by Anjelica Serra, Miranda Shamiso, Olivia Negrean, Youness Bouzinab, Lanna Joffrey, and Ella Jarman.

Thank you as well to all the partner organisations, funders, and industry colleagues who contributed their time, knowledge, and attention — and to everyone who joined our sharing, helping to create such a welcoming, generous, and thoughtful room.

PLAYGROUND continues to prove itself as a tested methodology for playwriting in international, collaborative settings: creating the conditions for stories to travel across languages and for artists to meet across cultures.

We’re proud of what was built this week — and excited for what comes next!

Sarajevo hosted our first in-person partners’ meeting during the inaugural Sarajevo Theatre Showcase (STS), where we encountered bold performances, fresh plays, and set concrete plans for Playground’s next steps. The city’s history — marked by the longest siege in modern times — reminded us how culture sustains the human spirit. Thank you to everyone who joined us for a week of discovery, collaboration, and connection.

From 3 to 9 November, Heartefact House in Belgrade hosted the R&D Workshop of Non correre Amleto by Italian playwright Francesca Garolla, led by Marija Milenković. Together with actors Stojša Oljačić and Nevena Mihajlović, translator Julijana Vučo, and facilitator Patrik Lazić, the team explored Francesca’s text. Non correre Amleto begins with a deeply personal event: on May 29, 1993, a humanitarian convoy heading to Bosnia and Herzegovina was ambushed on the Diamond Route. Among those killed was Francesca’s uncle. From this memory, blurred by time, dream, and contradiction, emerges a theatrical investigation on grief, love, and remembrance. A public reading took place on Saturday, 8 November, followed by a discussion where the audience became active collaborators, helping to reflect on how the play resonates in the local context. Francesca received layered dramaturgical feedback within a process designed to mirror real production conditions, a true dialogue between text, performance, and place.

From 10 to 14 November, La Mousson D’été in partnership with Théâtre Ouvert welcomes Romanian playwright Oana Hodade for an R&D workshop on her play Scenes from the Life of Family Stuck. She’s joined by a brilliant team, translator Fanny Chartres, director Cécile Arthus, and performers Élodie de Bosmelet, Claire Cahen, Hugues de La Salle, and Philippe Lardaud, to bring her text to life through table work and first readings. Oana is a performer, author, and composer working primarily in the performing arts. Her work explores fragility, intimacy, memory, and the rituals of everyday life — blending reality and fiction, sound and image, theatre and philosophy. Throughout the week, the group dives into the words, rhythms, and textures of the play, giving Oana the chance to hear her text performed for the very first time in French, after having readings in English, German and Romanian.

From 24 to 28 November, Ariel Theatre in Târgu Mureș welcomes Italian playwright Irene Petra Zani for a week-long residency to further develop her play In the Pink. The workshop is led by Olga Macrinici as director, with Eva Simon as translator, and a talented cast featuring Emilia Banciu, Georgiana Bighescu, Mariana Iordache, Georgeta Lozincă, Mioara Topor, and Cristina Ungureanu. Irene’s writing explores identity, gender, and the ways power dynamics shape our understanding of self and history. In the Pink — an idiom meaning “to be in great shape” — redefines the colour pink as both comic and cruel, offering a lens through which a chorus of women of different ages, classes, and origins reclaim the stories that History has silenced. Throughout the week, the group will delve into the play’s rhythm, language, and complex female voices, giving Irene the opportunity to hear her text performed in Romanian for the very first time. The R&D will culminate in a public reading at Ariel Theatre on 28 November.