Life Stories    About Young Europe V: Life Stories

Launched in 2008, it creates plays with a true European resonance, and makes them come alive for young people in schools and theatres.
In each edition, up to 10 ETC member theatres from across Europe come together to co-create original, engaging theatre that transcends national, cultural and even language barriers.
Counting four successful editions, with an award-winning Young Europe IV, the fifth edition is currently ongoing.

Young Europe V: Life Stories is a collaboration between nine Member Theatres in which the boundaries of youth theatre, new writing and the possibilities of the classroom are explored.

Over three years (2025-2027), nine playwrights will write a play guided by the 'dramaturgy of care'. They will be provided with one inhouse dramaturg from each theatre and four masterclasses, to ensure multi-voiced guidance.

The playwrights will also follow on-site and online workshops provided by experts relevant to the themes and discuss the given topics to explore the best possible way to tell their story.
The educational departments from each participating theatre shall collaborate to create a fitting educational program around the different plays.
The project will find it’s celebrative finish with a presentation of the results of the project: staged readings of fragments of the plays, combined with a panel discussion with the playwrights at the ETC International Theatre Conference 2027.

• About Young Europe V: Life Stories
• Meet the participating ETC theatres
• Meet the playwrights
• News & Events

Exploring New, Care-driven Dramaturgies

What are the stories we need in order to reshape our world? In what structure or form can those stories best be told? Is a traditional dialogue the best way to give a voice to a river, for example? And what does a dramaturgy look like that is shaped by the body, or trauma, both these things not being linear in nature? How do you keep a story that doesn’t follow a traditional arc exciting?

Questions like these will form the starting point for a new Young Europe, in which plays will be written that are driven by a dramaturgy of care, rather than a dramaturgy of conflict.

We are in desperate need of more care. Our current system, always centralizing growth, has driven our planet to the edge. Now there’s no denying it anymore: we have to stop asking ourselves ‘how far can we go?’ and start wondering ‘how do we travel the road ahead?’. Only then can we truly examine what it would take for our planet to start healing. And not only for our planet, but also for ourselves.

A new system that centres care, for each other and for the environment, also asks for a different kind of story. The way we tell stories now, is based on our faulty, current system: almost always following a pyramid structure (symbolising the movement of as much growth as possible and then collapsing into catharsis), and centering one hero, powerful and mostly stabbing things with a spear or a sword.

Ursula K. le Guin refers to this as ‘the killer story’. To cite her:

The trouble is, we've all let ourselves become part of the killer story, and so we may get finished along with it. Hence it is with a certain feeling of urgency that I seek the nature, subject, words of the other story, the untold one, the life story.

In Young Europe V, nine member-theatres team up to explore what these life stories look like and what they could mean for young people. After all, no one needs a change more than our youth, looking for a future that isn't such a given anymore.

By exploring alternative story structures and writing plays that prove that there is always another way, even if you’ve been stuck in something forever, we can inspire youngsters to start thinking outside the box for themselves, and to always remain hopeful.

Participating ETC Member Theatres

• THOC - Cyprus Theatre Organisation (Cyprus)
• Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe (Germany)
• Deutsches Theater Berlin (Germany)
• De Toneelmakerij (Netherlands)
• Het Zuidelijk Toneel (Netherlands)
• Divadlo Jána Palárika in Trnava (Slovakia)
• Slovak National Drama Theatre (Slovakia)
• Malmö Stadsteater (Sweden)
• Constanta State Theatre (Romania)

News & Events

Young Europe V Kick-Off

17-18 September 2025

Deutsches Theater Berlin, Germany

From 17–18 September 2025, Young Europe V officially kicked-off with an in-person event at Deutsches Theater Berlin, in Germany.
Over the two days, the project playwrights, mentors and consortium explored Young Europe V's trajectory, exchanged perspectives in creative workshops, and reflected on the concept of a “dramaturgy of care.” 

Masterclass I - Loneliness Among Young People

25 November 2025

Online

With Pamela Qualter, Professor of Education, Manchester Institute of Education, University of Manchester

Pamela Qualter is professor of psychology for education in the Institute of Education at the University of Manchester, and the UK’s leading scientific expert on child and adolescent loneliness. Pamela’s expertise involves large longitudinal studies, where she has explored the causes and consequences of loneliness, and the individual differences in the prospective profile of loneliness across the life-course. Pamela has also used experimental and observational methods to examine key aspects of loneliness, including impacts on health, aiming to understand what keeps people stuck in loneliness. She has also worked on a project developing a social media measure that offers better exploration of the role of social media in the emotional and social lives of young people.

Masterclass II - From Research to Stage: Using Youth Research Knowledge for Theatre Practice

26 January 2026

Online

With Tassia Breidenbrücker, Project Manager at the Bertelsmann Foundation in the Project Next Generation

Tassia Breidenbrücker works at the intersection of youth research, culture, and participatory practice, focusing on how research-based knowledge can be translated into engaging formats for young people (16–25). Her work explores how cultural spaces can foster dialogue, empowerment, and social change.

Young Europe V Mid-Term Meeting

21-23 April 2026

Backa Teater, Gothenburg/Sweden

The Young Europe V Mid-term Meeting was hosted at Backa Teater in Gothenburg, from 21-23 April 2026.

At the heart of this gathering were our 9 playwrights, who presented insights from their newly written plays for the very first time through participatory readings and feedback sessions.
This marked an exciting moment in the creative process, where fresh texts met collective reflection, dialogue, and exchange.
We are also thrilled to host the first meeting of our theatre pedagogues, beginning the journey toward developing a European Model for Theatre Education Workshops in Secondary Schools — connecting artistic creation with young audiences across Europe.
Over three days, artists, educators, and partners will come together to shape new stories, new methods, and new possibilities for theatre with and for young people.