Another meeting with the members of WEST went...festive! Awards were given to the winners of the ceremony for the best plays, a recapitulation of the finalized artistic process that happened with WEST in 2022 was done, some beautiful ideas for future collaboration between members of the WEST were mentioned. And in the end - Toasts! The year has come to an end and we, as member of WEST are happy to have met such amazing, hardworking artists that are willing to make art even in the most impossible circumstances. Check the video to see how we are wishing you the most heartfelt New Year in ukrainian.

Very excting to tell you that, Agnesa, our coordinator is entering Theatre Club of WEST - World of English Speaking Theatres, in this first time - Zoom meeting. It was interesting to get to know some of the members of this beautiful artistic community from Ukraine, Germany, Switzerland, England. The conversation started with a description of what was happening these days in Ukraine and how theatre-makers are doing in particular. And then, for this time, the focus was in the financial terms that english-speaking artists around Europe have to deal with. And for Agnesa it felt like whether you live in Kosovo or everywhere in Europe, as a theatre artist you are going to have to deal with the same problems, no matter how iracional are they! But the conversation had some beautiful and comic moments, as it happens every time artist get together.
Click below to listen to the whole conversation.

Our Intent's writer, Agnesa Mehanolli had her first project with us, "Where is Mr.President?" on June 20, 2021. After that, financial means were provided and she had the chance to manage and direct a translated-into-Albanian version of this audioplay. And thanks to this artistic piece, a well known Kosovar director asked her to collaborate for a theatre play called "Death Hour". After this project was successfully finalized, another professional contact was made and she got assigned to work with some other authors for another theatre play supported by National Theatre of Kosovo (that's still on the process). And to kind of, "close the cycle", Agnesa is going to be presented at this year's Kosovo Theatre Showcase, organised by Qendra Multimedia with a stage reading of another version of "WIMP" that's to be directed by another famous Kosovar theatre director. What's more exciting than that?!

Read more about this on the link below:

This year’s nominees for the Audio Production Awards have been revealed and amongst them, in the category for a Grassroots Production Award was nominated our newest podcast - Out Of The Woods. The competition was tough and Miran Hadzic Production was in really strong company, but didn't win the award. Though, it did win the recognition for everyone's hard work and amazing commitment!

Playwrights from INTENT New Theatre joined academics in a unique event to discuss how drama can help efforts to bring peace and justice after war. The event, titled 'Dramatic Interactions for Justice and Peace: Stories, Identity and Agency in post-Conflict Societies' organised by LSE IDEAS, the policy think-tank of the London School of Economics and the Ratiu Foundation reflected the growing role of art in Peacebuilding interventions by the international community. INTENT writers Agnesa Mehanolli and Ulpiana Maloku introduced excerpts from their plays 'Where is Mr President?' and 'Nude'.
The discussion, chaired by Dr Denisa Kostovicova, associate professor of Global Politics at LSE and head of the 'Justice Interactions and Peacebuilding (JUSTINT) research project, also featured Fin Kennedy, former artistic director of Tamasha theatre company and author of BBC radio drama 'On Kosovo Field' and Dr Ivor Sokolic, lecturer in politics and International Relations and the University of Hertfordshire.

INTENT New Theatre collaborates with FOUNDATION SEVENTEEN once more for an amazing night in Prishtina. Three audio plays of OOTW podcast were transmitted and then followed by a live discussion with the writers themself: Miran Hadzic, Ulpiane Maloku and Agnesa Mehanolli. Leaving modesty aside, the audience really did enjoy the unique stories of the plays and the unusual medium (audio-only) that's not really popular for the Kosovan audience. Among the comments, there were ones that expressed the desire for more amazing stories told through this medium.

'Nude' by Ulpianë Maloku and 'Where Is Mr President?' by Agnesa Mehanolli are two mischievous and wry audio dramas by these talented young Kosovan writers, featuring on Series 1 of Out of the Woods: New Plays from the Balkans.
Ulpianë's and Agnesa’s plays have been recorded in English, but if we can translate and record them in Albanian, they can reach and inspire audiences and other writers in Kosovo, who have limited possibilities to experience drama and podcasts in their own language.
To help us achieve this goal, please click on the link below:

Following the premiere of 'Nude' and 'Where is Mr President', theatre critic, Natasha Tripney, wrote about the plays noting that new drama from Europe and the Balkans is rare. Here's the link to the article:

Another project of INTENT, "Writers Room" started its process with a workshop led by Laura Bridgeman, a highly respected writer in London. Nine young writers started their writing process with a 2-hour online meeting where they talked about their submitted ideas that they intend to develop into professional writing pieces. The journey is long but at the end of the whole process, the writings are to have a staged reading in one of the London theatres, thus teaching the young writers about the writing process but also helping them gain international recognition.

The second workshop for "Radio Writing" takes place in Foundation 17, Prishtina one year since the first one ended. Once again INTENT has teamed up with award-winning London theatre company Tamasha to revive and expand radio drama in Kosovo. As part of this project, INTENT invited writers and theatre enthusiasts on a step-by-step series of writing workshops and a professional support team that would help write, showcase and produce someone's radio play. Fin Kennedy, the award-winning British playwright and Artistic Director of Tamasha, was one of the trainers that did an Introduction to Radio Drama Writing. The workshop started with Fjolla Hoxha, a Kosovan Dramaturg that helped the writers with their ideas and it kind of ended only in November 2019. During this period, after a lot of writing and re-writing and after so many discussions, two of the writing pieces of Ulpiane Maloku and Agnesa Mehanolli were selected to be finalised in their supposed form in the future.

The first social evening for supporters of INTENT New Theatre was held in Pristina with a screening of Sam Shepard’s play True West. To encourage new theatre audiences INTENT, in collaboration with Digital Theatre, is providing access to some of the best of international theatre via the big screen. Digital not only offers the chance to catch past productions of hits from London’s West End, but their subscription site, available through INTENT, also offers teaching sessions and Q & A’s with the creative teams behind both classic and contemporary plays. Future events coming up – for details contact Fjolla Hoxha hoxha.fjollla@gmail.com

INTENT New Theatre, in collaboration with Tamasha Theatre Company staged a reading of the critically acclaimed BBC Radio Play On Kosovo Field at the Qendra Multimedia in Pristina on 18th May 2018. Produced for the first time in an original Albanian language version, On Kosovo Field is the acclaimed radio drama written by Fin Kennedy that grew out of songs created by PJ Harvey on and after a journey to Kosovo. Originally told over five episodes on BBC Radio 4 in 2017, the production of On Kosovo Field was directed by INTENT Artistic Director, Kushtrim Koliqi with an all-Kosovan cast. the first two episodes of the BBC drama in Albanian, followed by a live listening of the original third episode in English.

Following the staged reading of On Kosovo Field, INTENT New Theatre is continuing to work with Tamasha and Kosovan partners in radio and the theatre and including the British Council, to develop a festival of radio drama in Kosovo, with On Kosovo Field as its centrepiece.

Award-winning radio playwright Fin Kennedy (author of On Kosovo Field) gave the first-ever workshop on writing for radio in the Qendra Multimedia Center in Pristina. Using examples of past radio plays broadcast by the BBC, and performances by actors including Andrew Sachs, he showed the creative possibilities of sound to tell stories you cannot see except in your imagination. Ten writers selected from an open call, took part in the workshop, learning how to create sound pictures and develop a complete story in just 15 minutes of drama. Although writing for radio is largely unknown in Kosovo, this workshop led to seven original scripts which were submitted in November, two of which will be performed in a scripted reading in London in 2017.

The Marlowe Theatre, Canterbury, UK invited INTENT New Theatre to produce a short studio piece entitled: ‘Kosovo. Life and Liberty in a Young Country’ as part of its community theatre event in July 2015, whose central theme was ‘the Rights of Others’ and the search for liberty. The 15 minute piece, developed through creative workshop was filmed in Kosovo and was shown at the Marlowe 8-11 July, 2015. INTENT Artistic Director Kushtrim Koliqi, and executive director Mary Martin spoke at a post-performance discussion about the themes of freedom and theatre in Kosovo on Friday 10 July, 2015 at the Marlowe, with UK playwright Anders Lustgarten and Paul Allain, Professor of Theatre and Performance at the University of Kent. Kosovo, Life and Liberty in a Young Country was edited by Tom Gibbons.

RICHARD TWYMAN, award-winning director and Associate Director (International) of the Royal Court Theatre, London gave a day long masterclass in the art of storytelling for the theatre. The workshop was attended by 25 Kosovan artists, who discovered the most powerful ways of telling stories through theatre, received advice about writing for the stage and techniques to shape and structure a story. The workshop included examples from successful and original contemporary plays and gave participants a chance to discuss their own – past and future – writing.

A panel discussion at the London School of Economics on the role of theatre in the politics of post-conflict and state transformation.

Peacebuilding and state-building initiatives traditionally bypass the arts in favour of governance and economic reforms. However there is a growing awareness that culture is an important dimension of creating stable, peaceful and democratic societies. Theatre is an important space for connecting communities previously at war. To explore the potential of drama in conflict-affected societies, we bring together leading theatre, human rights and peacebuilding professionals. We will also show a short film of political theatre-making by INTENT New Theatre entitled Kosovo: Life and Liberty in a Young Country.

With:
David Lan, Artistic Director of the Young Vic theatre in London,
Charlotte Onslow, Programme Development Advisor (Art and Peacebuilding) at International Alert,
Kushtrim Koliqi, Artistic Director of INTENT New Theatre,
Dr Mary Martin (Chair), Senior Research Fellow at the Civil Society and Human Security Research Unit, LSE and executive director of INTENT New Theatre.

INTENT New Theatre has developed a partnership with Chichester Festival Youth Theatre, one of the largest and leading centres for involving and educating young people in dramatic arts, to organize short-term study visits to the UK to mentor young Kosovan artists in technical theatre skills. The scheme devised by CFYT and INTENT will provide the opportunity for young Kosovans aged between 16 and 22 to spend a week in Chichester, observing and working on a current production. This kind of technical training does not currently exist in Kosovo where there are only opportunities to learn to act and direct. The training visit, fully funded and supervised by CFYT and INTENT New Theatre, will allow the participants to develop skills and an appreciation of technical aspects of theatre as part of our larger mission to create long-term cultural links and promote contemporary theatre as a tool for conflict prevention and peace-building in the region. If you are interested in applying for this scheme and would like further details please contact kushtrim@intentnewtheatre.org

INTENT New Theatre is spearheading a campaign to call on the British government to make it easier for visiting artists to obtain short-term visas to the UK. INTENT gathered 50 signatures from leading theatres and artists in the UK, such as Chichester Festival Theatre, the Young Vic, the Donmar, playwright Sir David Hare and actor Toby Jones to protest at the government’s decision to refuse short-term visas to two young Kosovan artists, supported by INTENT New Theatre. In a letter sent to the British Ambassador in Kosovo, the Foreign Office, Home Office and the chair of the Commons Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport, Daniel Evans, artistic director of Chichester Festival Theatre said:

"The free movement of artists is an essential driver in encouraging freedom of expression, cultivating new talent, nurturing collaborative relations between countries and fostering shared democratic and artistic values. We believe that story-telling through theatre – famously described by Sir Peter Hall as “a community’s live debate with itself” – is particularly important in countries transitioning from conflict, helping them to counter extremism and combat feelings of hopelessness and isolation, especially among a predominantly young population. We expect the UK government to support the principle of artistic exchange as a tool for international co-operation, peace-building and cultural diplomacy. We therefore call upon the UK government to do everything in its power to grant visa applications that enable young artists abroad to access the achievements and facilities of the UK theatre industry."