Patient Zero 1

In the organizer's words:

Play by Marcus Peter Tesch

An old apartment in a big city, somewhere in Germany, sometime between the HIV and corona pandemics. Outside: winter, sleet, freezing rain. The doorbell rings. Outside the door: Death. Once again. Great ...Patient Zero 1 is a radical and humorous declaration of war: against the forgetting and suppression of the other great pandemic of the late 20th and early 21st century - the so-called AIDS pandemic - against stereotypes and false prejudices, against isolation and silence - and not least against death itself. At the same time, the text pays tribute to all those whose voices have never been heard by an alleged majority society, all those who remain silent to this day out of shame and fear of stigmatization, to which HIV-positive people are still exposed. It is therefore also the documentation of an intimate search: For a silent language of solidarity and love, for different forms of community and family.

In her production, director Sarah Kohm embarks on a search: Could the individualizing experience of an illness become an experience of collective solidarity and a trigger for queer care relationships? Which structures justify the stigmatization of (queer) sexualities?

Marcus Peter Tesch's texts have been staged at the Deutsches Theater Berlin, the Theater Rampe Stuttgart and the Berlin Ringtheater. In 2021, he won the Nibelungen Festival Prize in Worms with the text Versuch, ein Stück über die Nibelungen (nicht) zu schreiben. In his texts, he deals with the retelling and visualization of queer history(ies) and deals with classism and its narratability on stage.

Director Sarah Kohm is interested in queer-feminist themes and motifs, among other things. Most recently, she staged Erinnerung eines Mädchens by Annie Ernaux at the Schaubühne Berlin - this work was named the highlight of the 2021/22 season in Theater heute's critics' survey.

In the current yearbook of the trade journal "Theater heute", dramaturge Katja Prussas writes about Marcus Peter Tesch's play "Ein gewaltiges Fuck you an den Tod".(https://www.der-theaterverlag.de/theater-heute/aktuelles-heft/)

In cooperation with AIDS-Hilfe Kassel