1. Tell us about your performance this spring.
2. Why do you want to do performing arts?
3. What do you think is missing from Swedish theater life?
Julia Ahndoril
Playwright. Wrote the play “Elevator,” which is part of Länk 2026, the National Theater’s project for newly written plays for young theater ensembles.
1. “Elevator” is a rather brutal piece that is about cruel violence that can almost only occur in groups – and about the very different ways two siblings deal with great grief.
2. Because it is a magical art form. In a world in which we seem to be increasingly losing touch with what is truly human, for me theater represents something real, something true. It is an art form that involves direct contact between the creator and the viewer, a unique encounter that takes place here and now and never again. When I watch theater, sometimes it’s as if I’m falling into a trance, an entire audience can sit in absolute silence – completely mesmerized by the actors on stage.
3. Sweden’s theater world needs to be brave. I want to see plays that shock me, I want to be in salons where half the audience gets up and leaves, I want to see theater that provokes real debate. I never again want to see or read a piece that claims to be ironic. Do something real! Be dangerous, disgusting, outrageous and challenging.
Yohannes Frezgi
Actor and playwright. This spring his debut play “The Sewing Machine” will premiere at the Angered Theater.
1. “The Sewing Machine” is about the life that follows after Joel is shot and confined to a wheelchair. About new and dead friends, about unconditional parenthood and coming to terms with your own past. But above all, it’s about wanting to sew. Seeing the script come to life is like a long, beautiful fever dream because I wrote the play and am starring in it. Furthermore, it is something extraordinary to work with this fantastic team. I feel at home.
2. For me, theater is a place that gives me space to say the unspeakable, to feel what is difficult, to touch what has no physical form. A place that can be in a playful dialogue with what cannot be taken seriously.
3. If I were an acting director for a day, I would structure the repertoire so that a certain percentage of the artistic team had never worked in the theater before. I would also introduce an open pitch competition where the audience votes for the winner and Dramaten shares responsibility with the winner for making the performance a reality.
Hannah Wikforss Green
Member of the Autodramatik theater group. Last fall he translated and directed Dimes Square Stockholm.
1. Autodramatik has a production going on that we will be performing this summer, the newly written play “Beauty” by Ludvig Köhler. It is autodramatic and plays with the ambiguity of fiction and reality even more than “Dimes Square”. Since last fall I have also been working as a producer for the independent group Hjärter fem and we are working on a new piece by Ella Löfmark called “Blondinens historia”. We’ll be playing it at Bonnier’s Art Gallery later in the spring. My third project is a secret collaboration with a Renaissance man.
2. Performing arts are the ultimate work of art. It suits me, who likes all cultural expressions but doesn’t master any of them. I also like being forced to put the phone away, like on a plane.
3. Apartment pieces. And money.
Odin Romanus
Actor. This spring he plays David in “Night is the Mother of Day” at Malmö City Theater.
1. The youngest son in “Night is the Mother of Day” has been a dream role for me for a long time. The play is difficult to prepare alone – it only comes to life when you read it with your co-stars. Then it’s like getting on a train and just setting off together. Sometimes we go through the scenes technically, but in the end you still end up driving it. It is simply not possible to write this text half-heartedly.
2. I think the thrill comes when your own ideas meet those of others and when you do, you can say something true about what it means to be human.
3. The storytelling. I feel like Teatersverige has moved from telling stories to telling ideas. The theater arts have a responsibility to engage audiences with stories and characters that matter to them. We sometimes forget that and instead try to make theater “cool” with sought-after ideas that cut through the common thread. The theater itself is cool. I would like more tension, swords, big wigs – and a clear willingness to take the audience on a journey. You should sit on it the edge of their seats!
Read more:
“It will be as if the revolution came to Vällingby Square”
