Sign here

by machina eX
in co-production
with the Schauspiel Essen

performance

Lea Beie,
Anne Eigner,
David Simon,
Martin Schnippa

concept and game design

machina eX

director

Yves Regenass

text

Clara Ehrenwerth

scenography

Barbara Lenarzt

Technical management and programming

Lasse Marburg

sound design and dramaturgy

Mathias Prinz

electronics

Sebastian Arnd,

interaction design

Benedikt Kaffai

costumes

Johanna Denzel

production management

Sina Kießling

assistant director

Felicia Daniel,
Paula Emmrich

stage and costume assistant

Anne Koltermann

photos

Albi Fouché

SIGN HERE sends the audience into the authorities. There, omnivorous paper tigers roam through lead deserts, while the red tape creeps up the walls and the mountains of files grow and flourish. In this thicket, decrees, orders and notices rule. They determine how you live, how you work, how you are allowed to live. Their instrument is writing - and only writing can they be confronted. The resolute staff are merely agents and prove to be less of a signpost than a danger on the winding paths.

In a bureaucracy simulation full of incomprehensible signs, in which everything is recognizable but nothing is familiar, the audience becomes a player and fights against regulations, paragraphs and declarations of special needs. Which strategy leads to success? Subservience, complaint, limitless patience? And what happens to those who cannot find their way in the world of regulations? "Sign Here" asks about the (game) rules and hurdles in a system that claims neutrality and yet is far from treating everyone fairly.

The initial idea for machina eX's latest theater game was the Essen theater's desire to address illiteracy. Those affected experience the inability to read as a stigma that must be hidden and is therefore often taboo. machina eX approaches this topic in a playful and sensual way.

Supported by the Brost Foundation

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28.9-13.10. / November 14-24, 2019

Schauspiel Essen, Germany