German Youth Theatre Award 2018

The German Youth Theatre Award 2018 goes to Dino Pešut (Croatia) for "Der (vorletzte) Panda oder Die Statik", translated by Alida Bremer.

In her laudatory speech for Fabrice Melquiot, Karola Marsch, representing the jury, praised the play as a great tragedy about love, power and claims to rule for children. The construction of the text is unusual in theatre for children and extremely remarkable: Melquiot uses mythical, archaic figures and creates a space for the children's characters that is untouchable by the outside world.

In the jury's laudation for Dino Pešut, Christoph Macha praised the play as one of the most political of current youth theatre. Using the example of social conflicts in Croatia, he said, it negotiates the great crises of democracy, turbo-capitalism, fear of foreigners and the loss of human values. The play makes it very clear in razor-sharp sentences and succinct replicas: People, we have to stand up!