Artistic Direction

Milo Rau

Milo Rau, born 1977 in Bern, is the artistic director of the Vienna Festival (Wiener Festwochen) | Free Republic of Vienna. Critics call him the “most influential” (Die Zeit), “most interesting” (De Standaard), “most controversial” (La Repubblica), “most scandalous” (New York Times) or “most ambitious” (The Guardian) artist of our time. The director and author, who is known for his work at the interface of art and activism, has published over 50 plays, films, books and actions. His theatre productions have been shown at all major international festivals, including the Berlin Theatertreffen, the Festival d’Avignon, the Venice Biennale, the Vienna Festival and the Kunstenfestivaldesarts in Brussels, and have been touring in over 30 countries worldwide. From 2018 to 2024 Milo Rau was Artistic Director of NTGent (Belgium). Milo Rau has received many awards, including the 3sat Prize 2017, the Saarbrücken Poetics Lectureship for Drama 2017 and, as the youngest artist after Frank Castorf and Pina Bausch, the renowned ITI Prize of the World Theatre Day in 2016. In 2017, Milo Rau was voted Director of the Year in a survey conducted by Deutsche Bühne, in 2018, he received the European Theater Prize for his work and in 2019 he was the first artist ever to be appointed Associated Artist of the European Association of Theatre and Performance – EASTAP. In 2020 he received the renowned Münster Poetry Lectureship for his complete artistic oeuvre. His plays were voted “Best of the Year” in critics’ surveys in over 10 countries. In 2019 he received an honorary doctorate from Lund University in Sweden, in 2020 he was awarded an honorary doctorate from Ghent University. A star honours him on the ‘Sibiu Walk of Fame’ (2023) and the Bitef Festival honoured him with the Politika Award for Best Director in 2024. 

List of works

• Die Wiener Prozesse (Theater, 2024)
• Medea’s Children (Theater, 2024, Text & Regie)
• Justice (Opera, 2024)
• Die Rückeroberung der Zukunft (Book, 2023)
• Was kann Theater (Essay, 2023)
• Antigone im Amazonas, (Theatre, 2023)
• The Interrogation, (Theatre, 2022)
• Grief & Beauty (Theatre, 2021)
• School of Resistance (Film and Discussion series 2021)
• La Clemenza di Tito (Opera 2021)
• The New Gospel  (Film 2020)
• Everywomen (Theatre 2020)
• Why Theatre (Book 2020)
• The Art of Resistance (Book 2020)
• The New Gospel & The Revolt of the Dignity (Campaign, Spectacle, Film 2019)
• The historical feeling. Ways to a global realism. Saarbrücken Poetics Lectureship for Drama (Book 2019)
• Orestes in Mosul (Performance, Book 2019)
• Ghent Altarpiece (Performance, Book 2018)
• Global Realism (Book, 2018)
• The Repetition. Histoire(s) du théâtre (I) (Performance, 2018)
• The Congo Tribunal (Film, Book, 2017)
• General Assembly (Performance, Book, 2017)
• Repetition and Ecstasy (Book, 2017)
• Lenin (Performance, Book, 2017)
• 120 Days of Sodom (Performance, Book, 2017)
• Empire (Performance, Video Installation, Book, 2016)
• Five Easy Pieces (Performance, 2016)
• Compassion. The History of the Machine Gun (Performance, Radio Play, 2016)
• Instructions for British Servicemen in Germany 1944 (Performance, Radio Play, 2015)
• The Hands of Althusser (Book, 2015)
• The Congo Tribunal (Performance, 2015)
• The Dark Ages (Performance, Radio Play, Video Installation, Book, 2015)
• The Civil Wars (Performance, Video Installation, Book, 2014)
• The Berlin Dialogues (Talkshow, 2013/14)
• What is to be done? Critique of postmodern reason (Book, 2013)
• The Revelation of the Real (Exhibition, Book, 2013)
• The Zurich Trials (Performance, TV Film, Book, 2013)
• The Moscow Trials (Performance, Feature Film, Book, 2013)
• Breivik’s Statement (Performance, 2012)
• Hate Radio (Performance, TV Film, Book, Radio Play, 2011/14)
• City of Change (Performance, TV Film, 2010/11)
• The Last Days of the Ceausescus (Performance, Feature Film, Book, 2009/10)
• Montana (Performance, 2007)
• Pornografia (Performance, 2006)
• The Greatest Happiness (Performance, 2006)
• Dial “A” for Avant-garde (Performance, 2005)
• Amnesia (Performance, 2005)
• Demons (Performance, 2005)
• The Rainer Werner Fassbinder Show (Performance, 2003)
• Paranoia Express (Feature Film, 2002)
• Art, Theatre, Reality: Kleist’s ‘Penthesilea’ as Reflected in Contemporary Aesthetic Theories (2002)