2006-…

New Text New Theatre is an international and innovative project led by GalataPerform, focusing on contemporary playwriting and new forms of dramatic writing.

The project, which was initiated in 2006 by Ceren Ercan, Dilek Altuntaş, Yeşim Özsoy, and Mark Levitas, gained an international dimension in 2009 and it has continued to evolve through a structured annual program since 2012.

The project unfolds across four main areas: workshops, events, festivals, and publications.

With its text-based approach, it not only supports the development of new plays but also opens up discussion on their potential in terms of directing, acting, dramaturgy, and stage design. At the same time, it aims to make visible the critical and academic contexts surrounding these productions.

Workshops form the core of the project. Open each year to participants who write or wish to write, this process supports the development of emerging playwrights through collaboration with local and international artists.

To date, the project has hosted numerous playwrights and directors from different countries in Istanbul, and their works have been translated into Turkish and shared with audiences through readings and public presentations.

The festival, held regularly since 2012, provides a platform where texts developed during the workshop process meet audiences and creative processes are opened up for sharing. Shaped each year around a different theme, the festival creates a space for encounter and production among writers, directors, and theatre professionals.

On the publishing side, yenimetin.com was launched to make visible and circulate the body of work produced. The platform functioned for a brief amount of time as a pioneering digital archive in Turkiye, bringing together play texts in e-book format. Following this, with the establishment of YeniPerform, selected plays written and translated within the project have also been published in print and as e-books in collaboration with Habitus Kitap Publishing House. Through this partnership, both the works of New Text playwrights and key texts of contemporary theatre continue to be introduced to the Turkish theatre landscape.

After 2017 with the addition of workshops in directing and theatre techniques and light design the project evolved into a more comprehensive approach to theatre; bringing into discussion not only text but also staging, design and approach to contemporary theatre making while developing these areas also.