The topic of migration has been a major source of debate across Europe, particularly in the past decade. The politicisation of this issue in many countries’ national conversations tends to reduce complexity and ignore the diversity and nuance of the migrant experience. The position of migrant artists is almost entirely absent from these debates and migrants themselves are often misrepresented in mainstream performing arts and popular culture. In dialogue with first-generation migrant artists, producers and activists based in the Czech Republic, Poland and UK, we delved into the migrant artist experience. We disscused what it’s like to emigrate with your creative practice (on both the artistic and bureaucratic level), where and how migrant artists and their work sit within dominant national performing arts scenes and what artistic and aesthetic approaches and perspectives migrant artists bring to their countries of residence. Conversations around migrants in the performing arts often take place in national contexts, so this conversation represents a unique opportunity to compare and contrast migrant artist experiences in different countries and discover what we can learn from each other and what types of solidarity we might wish to pursue.

Join us for a discussion of the emerging concept and practice of Ecoscenography (ecological design for performance). Ecoscenography explores new aesthetics and artistic paradigms that are inspired by environmental philosophies and practices to provide a captivating vision for the future of sustainable theatre production. A group of international practitioners share their insights, strategies and favourite projects as we examine what Ecoscenography means for our field, including the challenges and opportunities that an ecological approach to theatre production brings.

What’s the future of the performing arts in the age of AI, algorithms and the metaverse? Can gen-uine human expression and agency survive? Are we witnessing the emergence of a new, post-human aesthetic? Will the gulf between online and offline, pixels and atoms, and artificial and real actors and audiences blur, or even disappear entirely? Will this convergence provoke and gener-ate unique artistic experiments beyond our wildest dreams? Are we witnessing the emergence of a new, post-human aesthetic? In this episode, we delve into these questions and many more, in the company of AI experts and theatre practitioners working with AI, robotics and generative technologies on stage.

In theatre academies across Europe, students are initiating change and speaking out about misus-es of power at their institutions. In a challenging environment, where lecturers are often future col-leagues or employers and the very nature of the art forms demands going beyond normal human interaction, students are working to create fairer, safer spaces for learning and creative risk-taking, sometimes at great personal or professional cost. In this episode, we hear from current or former students from four countries who took actions to change their institutions’ culture. We’ll hear their stories and see what conclusions and strategies emerge from placing their experiences in dialogue.

More than just platforms to showcase productions, performing arts festivals represent an opportunity to bring people together, build community and collectively debate the issues facing society today. In this episode, we discuss the impact of the pandemic lockdowns on festivals, perhaps the most social manifestations of the performing arts. Guests from the BITEF, Bratislava in Movement, Divine Comedy and Palm Off Festivals share their current and past experiences of navigating the pandemic, along with broader issues concerning the environmental sustainability of festivals, there social function and what role - if any - streamed or hybrid performances might play in the future of festivals.

How theatre can heal and, conversely, how it might need to do some healing of its own? What kinds of healing did theatre offer to individuals and interpersonal relationships in the pre-Covid times and what will this healing look like in the weeks ahead? How to deal with the fear that spectators won’t come back, and with uncertainties related to the cultural aridness of society? What mental state do theatre makers, dancers and related professionals find themselves in after so many months of economic, social and creative uncertainty? Isn’t the theatre itself in need of some healing right now? Martin Sedláček, a practicing psychotherapist who also lectures in the Department of Drama in Education at the Theatre Faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague invited four guests from the Czech Republic, Hungary, Italy and Poland to a conversation on these topicsand in this episode you’ll hear summary of their discussion.

Over a year and a half into the pandemic, theatre producers, cultural managers and a creative entrepreneur sit down to reflect on their recent experiences of theatre on screen. What new insights have the pandemic and the resulting explosion of digitisation offered and what issues do the guests find most pressing now? Despite the ongoing uncertainty, can they help us find any reasons to be cheerful? Guests from HowlRound Theatre Commons, the European Festivals Association, Warsaw’s Nowy Teatre and the Czech Republic’s Dramox streaming platform dive into the complexities and contradictions of theatre’s shift into the virtual space, with topics rationing from digital distribution’s contribution to greater accessibility to the hidden carbon footprint of streaming.

On a global scale, the pandemic had a disastrous impact on social bonds and communities. New social distancing measures and public health provisions erected new barriers between artists and their audiences. The contactless reality of the pandemic highlighted many inequalities already present within the society, exposed vulnerable working and economic conditions and aggravated associated mental health issues, with performing artists often bearing the brunt. This podcasts is a reflection of discussion of four theatre practitioners and researchers about how performing arts can change and rework some of its practices for a better, more empathic, and sustainable practice.

Anti-pandemic regulations did not favour collective on-stage creation. Did the limitation of theatrical activities improve the position of playwrights, the majority of whom write in isolation, or did it make their already fragile situation even more precarious? What themes has Covid-19 introduced to dramatic theatre? Are the texts written in this period more introverted, or, on the contrary, more radical? Have the initiatives launched to alleviate the symptoms of covid in the sphere of new writing been successful? Taking the Living Newspaper project (Royal Court Theatre, London), the L’ubimovka Festival of Young Playwrights (Moscow), the Monovid-19, series of staged monologues (Croatia) and the Dráma competition for Slovak and Czech plays as examples, in this episode, we discuss the sustainability of drama as a literary and theatrical genre. 

In this episode, we present a number of digital theatre projects. In dialogue with theatremakers from the Czech Republic, Hungary, Portugal and the USA, we unpacked a theatrical sub-genre that has expanded tremendously in the current climate, considering the possibilities it offers, the creation process for online projects and strategies for holding an online audience’s attention. Our discussion also dealt with the differences between traditional theatre techniques and digital theatre and the issue of their relationships in the future evolution of theatre.

The springboard for discussion in the "Green Thursdays" series and for this episode was the Theatre and Environmental Protection survey, a piece of research carried out in spring 2020 as part of Theatre Night in the Czech Republic, in which the majority of respondents stated that they actively try to minimise the environmental impact of their activities, albeit in a somewhat haphazard way. We spoke with guests from the Czech Republic, Poland and France about current ecological trends in theatre management or production and cultural mobility, as well as how the topic of sustainability resonates in communication with the public, in artistic programs and the pandemic-induced slowdown, which we are coming to terms with on a daily basis, more or less organically. We progressed from concrete examples, attitudes and measures, through emphasis on their sustainable management and systematic evaluation, to reflecting on artistic and personal practices and the lot of the performing arts in the context of the European Green Deal and the new – pandemic and post-pandemic – normality.

The starting point for this episode of the ShowOff podcast was a discussion of the same name with Nela H. Kornetová, a Czech theatre artist based in Norway, Greek researcher and critic Savas Patsalides and Martynas Petrikas, a Lithuanian expert on contemporary Central European theatre. The main topic of discussion was to search for and formulate the fundamental meaning of theatre and the reasons for its existence in the digital twenty-first century. The resulting podcast is a summary of the most fundamental moments of the conversation. Why go to the theatre when we carry a gateway to an infinite number of entertainments in our pockets? Can theatre exist in a compressed format, or is it fundamentally resistant to compression? How do younger generations, online from birth, relate to offline meetings that occur at one time and in one place. What is the meaning of "live" today. Are there reasons to fear for the future of live encounters, or is it us who should be afraid of them? This episode offers few answers and raises many questions. Join us for a this episode on the future of theatre through the eyes of theorists and practitioners, brought to you by Jiří Šimek, actor, theatre maker and founder of Ufftenživot company (www.ufftenzivot.cz).

As part of a webinar focused on the role of theatres and theatre academies in the public space, we tried to speak not only about the current situation in selected theatre academies in Poland, Hungary, the Netherlands and the Czech Republic, but to think together about important aspects of institutional politics in a European context, and also in terms of the interconnectedness of these academies. We identified the following common themes as key: deep care for the quality of relationships and institutions; the assumption of personal responsibility; the creation of alliances and networks; new possibilities for leadership and the use of initiatives from all levels of the institution; reducing the difference between proclamations and performativity; transparency and the willingness to take action in public. A discussion on theatre as a cultural institution, with Alice Koubová, lecturer and researcher at the Institute of Philosophy at the Czech Academy of Sciences. 

The introductory episode, titled “A Third Theatrical Reform?” addresses the integration of theatre and digitality, particularly in relation to the concept of presence. The discussion begins with the fact that digital tools are gradually becoming a part of theatrical language. This reality has been accelerated by the ongoing pandemic and the related government restrictions. What positive role can technology play in the development of theatre? How to blur the boundary between the virtual world and reality? The philosopher, writer and journalist Anna Luňáková reflects on the emerging future of theatre in relation to a changing society.