ny day now ten aspiring playwrights will get the word—a “call back”.

While the debate in the US still continues in regard to MFA programs for writers and playwrights, Norway is organizing a pilot project for formally educating playwrights. While there is a private school that offers courses in screenwriting, but there have only been random workshops and seminars for writing for the stage. 

The project is a cooperation between the state-run theater college, two of Norway’s larger institutional theaters and a free theater, which has supported playwrights for years by organizing writer’s groups, workshop productions and seminars. Of the more than three hundred applicants, ten will be chosen for final interviews and three will be selected to begin studies in the fall.

The writers (who are required to have a high school diploma) will attend the theater college for two years, taking classes along with the future actors and directors of Norway. The student’s work will be staged on one of the two institutional stages during the two years of study. The three chosen ones will be under an awful amount of pressure. Theater managers are being quoted in the papers: “We have high expectations!” “Looking for another Ibsen or two!”

I’m just wondering how many of those new plays will be about incestuous circles … 

And here in Stavanger:

The Iranian writer Mansour Koushan is founding a new free group, Teater Sølvberg. The project theater plans to have several productions a year and a workshop space that will be open to dedicated actors (amateur and professional) several nights a week. Multicultural is the keyword for this new theater, which will have a permanent stage downtown (in the same building that houses the cinema, library, and art gallery). The first production will be Sophocles’ANTIGONE and will premiere in the fall during the annual international literature festival. 

According to the local paper, Koushan wants to bring a more European flavor to Norway, to draw from laboratory theater, “experience theater” and modern theater. It will be interesting to see what he means. So far no auditions have been announced, and the theater’s director of administration, Helge Lunde, is tight-lipped when it comes to the details. 

 © 2001 Ren Powell

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