In his novel BLÖSCH, Swiss author Beat Sterchi describes everyday life with powerful language and an unerring eye. With a wink, he thwarts the romanticisation of rural life. Rafael Sanchez and Mike Müller, a duo with a proven track record, adapt the text for the opening of the Pfauen, and translate the exploitation of people, animals and the environment into modern questions of social coexistence.

From May 1430 to May 1431, the famous and controversial Joan of Arc was imprisoned and awaiting execution. A year that Friedrich Schiller deliberately omitted from his adaptation of the historical events, which premiered in 1801. This gap in the theatre canon prompts director Marie Schleef to trace the fate of women condemned to death. What if Joan were alive today?

A bank employee killed the caretaker. Just like that, with an axe, and for no reason. While the defence lawyer, Dr Hahn, searches for a motive, the prosecutor, Martin, gives up trying to make sense of the crime.
In COUNT ÖDERLAND, Zug-born director Claudia Bossard explores the explosive mix of social alienation, populism and state failure. She thereby creates a psychological profile in which ego and desire are the catalysts for a revolution.

Still in transition, driving to Italy to visit relatives with a squeaky voice from Testogel? Phew. Matteo dreads it, but he wants to spend time with his ill father. Thus begins a road trip that turns into a touching exploration of masculinity and queerness. Swiss writer Kay Matter has been commissioned by the Schauspielhaus Zürich to write a play that will unfold over the course of the season as a three-part series, directed by three different directors: Dennis Nolden, *other issues and Sarah* Claire Wray.

A woman who worked as a cow inseminator before her marriage meets, together with her lapdog, a supernatural creature: half human and half cow. This encounter causes the voluntary housewife to confront her past. With HOLSTEIN MILK COWS, Japanese writer and director Satoko Ichihara creates a radical new interpretation of Euripides’ ancient tragedy «The Bacchae».

Let’s be honest: what does love mean today? At a time when we are drifting further and further apart, the decision to treat each other with compassion and love is revolutionary. And so, the stage is transformed into a fictional dating show where the protagonists are on a mission to find their own way to love.

Every winter, the Schauspielhaus invites all generations to enjoy a family play at the theatre together. On stage, adults in costume perform fairy tales and legends. But what if children made up their own stories and acted them out? And what if they were inspired by the utopias and fictions of politics? A stage-science-fiction in which both children and adults see the future unfolding.

The Sicilian Prince Salina is tall, strong, educated and infallible – a patriarch of old Europe. But the charisma of his noble family is beginning to crumble. Based on his own family history, Giuseppe Tomasi Di Lampedusa’s episodic novel recounts no less than 50 years of social change. Pınar Karabulut brings the novel to the stage of the Schiffbau Halle in grand style, marking the festive start of her co-directorship at the Schauspielhaus.

The New York theatre-making duo Ta-Nia is known for creating deeply poetic characters and liberatory worlds. With (WHAT YOU’LL FIND) ON THE WAY TO BECOMING, the duo is, for the first time, bringing Afro-futures to the stage in Switzerland, forming artistic relationships with the Zurich scene. A transformative and transcendental night at the club begins! In this Black (BLK) and queer communal space, everyone is encouraged to be who they are – or want to be, so long as it’s with intention.

Troy lies in ruins and ashes. After ten years, the war is finally over. Yet for the women of the defeated, the horror continues: torn from their homeland, grieving the fallen, they must serve the Greeks as spoils of war. Angeliki Papoulia and Christos Passalis are co-founding members of the BLITZ theatre collective. For their debut at the Schauspielhaus Zürich, they focus on Euripides’ HECUBA, a work insane enough to confront the insanity of our contemporary era.

The triangle is the most stable and at the same time the most precarious geometric shape. Like a wooden stool that keeps wobbling but never falls over. No wonder constellations of three are so fascinating. In her first play commissioned by the Schauspielhaus Zürich, writer Barbi Marković explores the relationship between three sisters. At the Schauspielhaus, Marković’s writing finds an ideal partner in director Christina Tscharyiski, who skilfully translates contemporary drama onto the stage.

A small town with a familiar facade, a town hall, a post office and a bakery. The inhabitants go about their daily lives, meeting in the evening for choir practice. A picture is painted of human existence in a fragile society, where the effort to disguise oneself in order to fulfil “one’s duties” is immense. Swiss composer and director Ruedi Häusermann creates multi-layered musical theatre works and now returns to the Schauspielhaus Zürich with a new production.

When the forces of nature rage and storms turn the world upside down, it can only mean one thing: trouble in fairyland. Oberon and Titania, the rulers of this enchanted realm, are once again experiencing a crisis in their relationship. Pınar Karabulut playfully explores the follies of love on the Pfauen stage. She transforms Shakespeare’s summer tale into a dizzying ride along the fine line between love and desire, power and submission.

Imagine that everything you’ve been told is true: television gives you square eyes, spinach gives you superpowers, and when the ice-cream van plays its music, it means there’s no more ice-cream. Sounds unbelievable? Well, that’s the world you’re about to enter! The Zurich-based network wildi blaatere brings together artists from Switzerland and Germany who lovingly develop stories for audiences who may or may not be familiar with theatre.

How does our worldview develop in childhood and how do we find ourselves in it? The mother figure is examined as a concrete and symbolic reference point for these questions. She represents the human need for security that haunts us in the form of ghosts and monsters. The new production by the artist trio Recke/Lehmann/Froelicher explores the connections between universal subject psychology and individual self-realisation.

Saya, Hani and Kasih, friends since childhood, come together for a wedding. Their reunion becomes the starting point for a story that reveals the social reality of the three women’s lives. Ayşe Güvendiren, who has been exploring right-wing extremism and the culture of remembrance in her documentary work for many years, adapts a novel for the first time. It is a story that, with subtle humour, repeatedly challenges us to question our own patterns of reaction.

At the end of the 20th century, rapid advances in science and technology culminated in a duel between humans and machine. Chilean author Benjamín Labatut traces the lives of extraordinary people who have laid the foundations of our technologically driven present. For the first time, a text by Labatut is staged at the Schauspielhaus. Labatut’s writing finds its ideal theatrical translation in Calixto Bieito’s impressive commitment to the performing arts and their language.