R.E.A.D#10 festival Helsinki
This year the festival takes place on 16th and 19th of October at Post Theatre Collective Studio in Pengerkatu 11 a 3. The 10th edition of the festival brings plays from various geographical locations and will be performed in English.
R.E.A.D is a yearly reading drama festival organized in Helsinki by Post Theatre Collective. The festival which was established in 2014 by David Kozma is an arena that offers the opportunity to get acquainted with plays that have not been performed in Finland before.
R.E.A.D brings together the Finnish audience and local and international theatre makers including playwrights, actors, and directors in an intimate environment. The festival gives a grassroot stage to plays that might not have the possibility of having a stage in Finland, with the hope to influence and diversify the program of the bigger theatre stages in the country.
PROGRAM
October 16
18:30
Pat To Yan: Neometropolis
Directed by Alisa Nirman
With Ylva Hanson, Roosa Honkanen, Riikka Korhonen, Ally Manson, Eeva Putro, Anastasia Trizna, Timo Teern
Eleven-year-old Earnest has the innate ability to determine the weather. Together with his father Mono, he lives in Neometropolis, an extremely intelligent city that is, however, almost completely controlled by the tech elite and their company. Mono is the chief engineer of Neometropolis. When his cat Tea disappears, Earnest follows her and also disappears into the forest that surrounds the city. His father is desperate and at first helpless, until he realises that the plants in his house are giving him clues through their noises. So he also enters the forest, learns to communicate with it and discovers that Earnest and Tea want to become part of the forest. And the latter has decided to occupy Neometropolis in order to restore the entire ecosystem.
Pat To Yan, born in 1975, is a playwright and director. He lived in Hong Kong until autumn 2021 and was resident playwright at the Nationaltheater Mannheim in the 2021/22 season. His plays have been performed many times in Hong Kong as well as in Saarbrücken, Frankfurt a. M., Munich and Freiburg. The Munich Biennale 2022 presented his libretto in cooperation with the National Theatre and Mannheim Opera Die Verdammten und die Geretteten. For the opening of the 2022/23 season, the Giessen Theatre is staging the world premiere of Trilogie as a multi-genre project directed by Thomas Krupa.
20:00
Hysterical Drama - stand-up in English
Being a stand-up comedian is sometimes like having a malevolent playwright living inside your head: endless dialogue, snappy comebacks, and getting yourself into the kind of verbal trouble that usually only happens at a dinner party written by Pinter. Fresh for the READ festival, join Jamie MacDonald and other comedians for a night of stand-up, storytelling, and jokes at the expense of our theatrical selves.
On stage:
Zach Chamberlaine
Author, performer and visual artist who is originally from London (UK), but has been living in Helsinki (Finland) for twenty-five years. Since 2020, Zach has also been the main producer at the NoName Theatre, which is run by a non-profit association. This intimate blackbox theatre in downtown Helsinki actively seeks to stage new works written in English by people living in Finland.
Eetu Sopanen
Stand-up, actor, writer, and all-around stage artist, Eetu chose stand-up as a teenager and still carries that nihilistic optimism with him wherever he goes. He's a recent acting grad of Draamasalo and the host of regular comedy clubs like Vitsiluola in Helsinki.
Tomi Walamies
Comedy writer and stand-up since 2008, Tomi has performed in the UK and US among other places, buoyed by his watertight craft of joke writing. An expert at the comedic form, he's written for Uutisvuoto, Yle Leaks, and Noin Viikon Uutiset, and can be often found online in pursuit of new avenues for comedy.
Jamie MacDonald
Performance artist, theatre artist, and stand-up comedian, Jamie has the dubious title of "daddy of queer Finnish stand-up" and he intends to live up to it. He's one of the founders of the Punch Up! Resistance and Glitter variety show and ran Feminist Comedy Night in Helsinki. Currently he's doing an artistic practice-based PhD on emotions in minority stand-up comedy at Uniarts Helsinki.
21:30
Afterparty
The festival is free of charge but requires registration.
In collaboration with Nordic Drama Corner, Marta Fluvià Agency and Eurodram - European network for drama in translation.
With the support of Arts Council of Finland and City of Helsinki