The 2024 Rehearsal for Truth International Theater Festival’s Spring Readings will take place from May 17 – June 3. It will offer stage readings and a glimpse of a first rehearsal of contemporary plays by award-winning European playwrights from Belarus, Hungary, Slovakia, and Romania.

Each festival’s spring edition is a unique opportunity for a truly intercultural and multigenerational examination of Central and Eastern European present-day trends and the not-so-distant, turbulent past. The state of affairs in the region—the Russian invasion of Ukraine—has only amplified the need for our closer examination of human nature as well as a search for peace and place to belong.

During four evenings, a number of riveting stories will be told: Maryia Bialkovich, a former member of the Belarus Free Theatre explores the origins of violence, social and personal norms that do not always reflect reality. (Any Spot with Marks Left Behind); Krisztina Toth offers a biting commentary on a Hungarian society marked by hatred, recrimination, and ultimately sorrow. (The Bat); Vladislava Fekete writes about the continuing ramifications of a childhood spent in the Slovak minority in Vojvodina, Serbia during the war (Brief Connections); and you are invited to the first rehearsal of a play adapted from a novel by Nobel-Prize winner Herta Müller, a series of episodes that center on mundane aspects of daily life in a remote village against the backdrop of the oppressive atmosphere of mid-twentieth century Romania (Lowlands).

The Reading Series is a prelude to 2024’s edition of Rehearsal for Truth: Dark Dreams, which will run June 12 – 23.