The 2024 Rehearsal for Truth International Theater Festival

The 2024 edition of Rehearsal for Truth International Theater Festival: Dark Dreams, which will run June 12 – 23. This year’s festival (including the May reading series) features work from Austria, Belarus, Estonia, Czechia, Germany, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, and Ukraine. Much of the work featured this year is surreal or dreamlike, finding ways to comment on past and present tragedies, from the legacy of the Nazi and Soviet years to the current war in Ukraine. It explores fascism but also beauty, darkness but also laughter.

Spring Reading Series

Each festival’s spring edition is a unique opportunity for a truly intercultural and multigenerational examination of Central and Eastern European present-day trends and the not-so-distant, turbulent past. The state of affairs in the region—the Russian invasion of Ukraine—has only amplified the need for our closer examination of human nature as well as a search for peace and place to belong.

More information about the event here.

More about Rehearsal for Truth Theater Festival here.

Rehearsal for Truth Theater Festival is a showcase of contemporary European theater organized each year in New York City. Conceived in 2017 as a shared endeavor of the Vaclav Havel Center (VHC) and Bohemian Benevolent and Literary Association (BBLA), the festival honors the legacy of Czech playwright, dissident and political thinker Vaclav Havel. Each edition of Rehearsal for Truth Theater Festival addresses current sociopolitical trends in Central Europe, offering New York audiences a unique opportunity to witness the region’s theatrical zeitgeist. Further information here.

Czech programs within the festival:

Wed June 12 Two Kafka shorts

Mark Harman's new translations of Kafka shorts. One is about an ape who has learned to be human. Read and performed by Markus Hirnigel, directed by Henry Akona in a music hall vein. The other is a new music piece by Martin Bresnick with speaking percussionists (Makana Madeiros and Chad Beebe).

Thu June 13 Blood Sweat and Queers 7:30pm

A new Czech play by Tomáš Dianiška (who will be attending). Inspired by the life of the successful athlete Zdena Koubková, celebrated in the sports world of the time as a “wonder woman” and holding several world records until she was identified as intersex - in 1936, changed her gender, and underwent surgery to become Zdeněk Koubek. Translated by Edward Einhorn and Katarina Vizina.

Sun June 16 Noon 3pm

Noon combines documentary and physical theater to tell about the events which followed after the demonstra- tion of eight people in Red Square on August 25, 1968, using visual theater of insistent images. It is inspired by the poetry of Natalya Gorbanevskaya, Vadim Delone and other Soviet dissident poets of the 1960s and 1970s, along with live string quartet accompaniment.

Tue June 18 The Last Cyclist 7:30pm

Theater on Film. Based on a dark comedy written in the Terezín Ghetto in 1944 by camp inmate Karel Švenk but banned on the night of its dress rehearsal for fear of SS reprisals. The play the actors are rehearsing in the film pits bike riders (Jews) against lunatics (Nazis), as did the absurdist original—a silly story with a deeply serious message. The Last Cyclist allows audiences to bear witness, as if we too are attend-ing that fateful rehearsal in the concentration camp.

Wed June 19 Riders 7pm

Dance on Film. The ability to exist in symbiosis with other creatures on the planet, the importance of respecting the value of all beings, the uniqueness of species and the struggle to preserve them – these are the main themes of the production. The force and power of nature will always find their way and do what is necessary. Riders views human action through the eyes of birds. Of the ancient inhabitants of our planet, sentient, intelligent, free beings, shrouded in mythology. Of the silent observers of our destinies. We had learned from them, admired them and worshiped them. Then we forgot. Birds are the only surviving group of dinosaurs. They were here before us and they will be here long after us. The choreographer of the performance, Lenka Vagnerova, will also be in New York from Prague for a discussion.

Wed June 19 Commander & Effemery 9pm

Dance on Film. The choreographer will be visiting from Prague for a discussion. Two short dance films from Farm in the Cave. Effemery is about fleeting moments. It was filmed during early Covid in a vast, empty building, with 20 performers in permanent motion. Commander is inspired by real online chats of the neo-Nazi group FKD, which was led by a thirteen-year-old boy operating under the nickname Commander. It uses the chats themselves as the text.

Sat June 22 The Zlin Project at 2pm, 4pm, and 7pm

The full company will be in from the Czech Republic. Tomas Bata’s advisor, Berty Ženatý, wanted to replace fairy-tale characters in children’s stories in the 1920s with clever and skilled industrial workers. A puppet production about the life of the city of Zlín in the era of Baťa. A production about everyday life that is functional, modern, universal, model, routine and effective. Every day, all the time. Until an error occurs.

They are also running a puppetry workshop on Sun June 23 at 11am.

Rehearsal for Truth Theatre Festival

Main Festival (June 12 – 23, 2024, Bohemian National Hall)

Further information and tickets here.

Full program

Wed June 12 | 7:30pm – The Report for an Academy, by Kafka (Austria/Czech) Mixed

New translation by Mark Harman

performance/reading directed by Henry Akona

Sponsored by the Austrian Cultural Forum and the Czech Consulate General in NY

Thu June 13 | 7:30pm – Blood, Sweat, and Queers (Czech/German)

By Tomáš Dianiška

Staged reading directed by Barbora Schnelle & Henning Bochert