and then the doors opened again…

Locked down at home during the first wave of Covid-19, David Weber-Krebs kept on thinking about the day when theatres would open their doors again. At that point, it was somehow difficult to even picture that moment. On the 8th of April, 2020, in the middle of the lockdown, David sent an e-mail to his peers: artists, scholars, curators, and spectators belonging to different art communities. In this e-mail, there was a simple question: What will happen on your first theatre visit after the lockdown? It was an invitation to imagine the future of theatre from this very specific moment when theatres were all closed and when it was not clear how and when and if they would open again.

This exchange resulted in the book And Then the Doors Opened Again.

In March 2021, in light of the 2nd lockdown that started in the fall/winter 2020 all across Europe, David wants to direct the same question to spectators, during a walk and talk around Kaaitheater building. The idea will be then to collect the learnings from this experience and to develop local interventions together with theatre audiences in Rotterdam, Riga and Skopje.

AND THEN THE DOORS OPENED AGAIN/ next step 

A project in process about (possible) futures of theatre conceived by David Weber-Кrebs with the dramaturgical support of Simone Basani.

And then the doors opened again continues in Skopje the research phase started in Brussels at Kaaitheater, during which a series of spectators shared individually their visions about future spectatorship and theatre. Part of the research is also an online collective workshop on the same topic with spectators from Macedonia and abroad.

This phase, or the next step, was developed in conversation between the ACT partners – Theater Rotterdam, Kaaitheater, New Theatre Institute of Latvia and Lokomotiva – and the artist, and in relation to context needs, having in mind the question of the book, now directed towards the spectators.

Each context and theatre has its own specificities which are taken in consideration. Hence, in Skopje, the project is developed in few phases which involve collective actions: 1/research with the spectators – as interviews/talks 2/ archiving the talks 3/presentation of the archive

Research is centred on theatre as concept, but also as infrastructure. Lokomotiva just lost the space of Kino Kultura, which supported contemporary performing arts development in Skopje. It was the only space in the last five years that aimed to develop a different theatre concept than the repertoire public theatres. Thus, we want to investigate and speculate what such a loss brings to the future, a loss of a concept and infrastructure? But also, what would development of a new space and concept mean? What it would mean to the spectators, or what would be their suggestion for a new theatre? – as a space and concept.

Other than these, follow-up questions include: What do spectators need; what is the theatre they expect after the pandemic crisis; and how we, the professionals, can address those speculations and needs, among other.

Lokomotiva pursues further the idea of a space of a theatre where we can produce, discuss, develop and live a new theatre in Skopje. Therefore, this research will also help to continue and bring forward the idea of Kino Kultura, and invent our theatre of the future.

In the development of the project idea in Skopje, artist David Weber-Krebs, worked with Simone Basani, dramaturg, Jasmina Vasileva and Ivica Dimitrijevic, actors, and Biljana Tanurovska–Kjulavkovski, curator from Lokomotiva – June 8-16, 2021, in Skopje. Then they will continue working on the interviews locally and online, and will share publicly the final output at the end of 2021.