Erik Altorfer taking part of CIFCET
Egypt
Swiss dramaturge and writer Erik Altorfer is invited by the Cairo International Festival for Contemporary and Experimental Theater to take part of this year’s program with a writing workshop for young theater writers from September 11 to 17. Beside the workshop, Altorfer is also giving a public talk about “The History of Swiss Theater” on September 15, 2018.
This year, Switzerland was chosen by the Cairo International Festival for Contemporary and Experimental theater as the guest of honor of the Festival, celebrating 30 years of Pro Helvetia Cairo.
About Altorfer:
Swiss dramaturge and writer; tudied German and English literature and linguistics at the University of Zurich and was assistant director at the Schauspielhaus Theater in Zurich. Since 1997, he worked as director and dramaturg with a focus on contemporary writing and projects that assume various artistic styles in theaters and festivals in Germany, Austria, England, Argentina and Switzerland. He directed amongst many other plays “The Bus” by Lukas Bärfuss and “Orphans” by Dennis Kelly. He launched an initiative to organize festivals showcasing new writing at the Schauspielhaus Theater in Zurich (“20 Minuten (international”) and the steirischer herbst in Graz Austria (“Save the World”), the Civic Theater of Bern (“Meiler, Hauben und Globen”), Teatro Callejon in Buenos Aires (“Dramaturgias Cruzadas” in cooperation with the Goethe Institute in Buenos Aires, ProHelvetia and more). He was artistic director of the Swiss playwrights’ program “Dramenprozessor” (2000-2014), which won the Swiss Theatre Award 2015. He also directs radio plays for Deutschland radio Berlin and WDR in Cologne, as well as the Swiss radio channel DRS2/SRF2, and held writing workshops in Belarus, Bolivia, Egypt and Lebanon. Altorfer is a member of the Theater Committee of Zurich.
