Dreck Productions and the Austrian Cultural Forum are proud to present a NYC revival of Dirt, the European award-winning one-man show written by Robert Schneider, which went on to become a critically acclaimed production at the 2007 NY International Fringe Festival. Dirt is directed by David Robinson and performed by Christopher Domig. Performances run from April 2 – 26, 2008 in a limited engagement at Under St. Marks in NYC. Previews begin April 2 for an April 5 opening. For more info and to view selected scenes from the play visit http://www.dirt-nyc.com.
Dirt was the most frequently performed solo show in Austria, Germany and Switzerland in the 1990’s. The influential German theatre magazine Theaterheute awarded Robert Schneider Best New Playwright Of The Year (1993) for Dirt. The play centers on Sad, a desperately alienated illegal immigrant from Iraq, who confronts xenophobia, latent racism and ethnocentrism as he sells roses on the streets to make ends meet. He is charming, cynical, humorous, violent and sad. Although he loves the English language and American culture he misses his homeland. As Sad continues to talk it becomes increasingly clear that he has a love-hate relationship with himself, his heritage and the western world he currently lives in. Haunting and compelling, Dirt is a telling story about racism and the havoc it wreaks upon the human soul. The play will be performed this August in Scotland as part of the 2008 Edinburgh Fringe.
Dirt ("Dreck"), written by Austrian playwright and novelist Robert Schneider, premiered in 1992 in Vienna, where it was performed in German, its original language. In 1993, Dirt premiered in Hamburg, Germany at the Thalia Theater and was awarded the Dramatist’s Prize at the "Potsdam Theater Days", selected by the jury as the "best contemporary stage work." Schneider’s first novel Schlafes Bruder ("Brother of Sleep") was published in 1992 and immediately became a worldwide success, with translations into 24 languages. He received numerous awards including the Premio Grinzane Cavour (the most important literary prize in Italy for foreign-language literature) and the Prix Médicis (Paris, France).
