Dear friends,

after the huge success in Edinburgh with winning a "Fringe First" and a "total theatre award" our performance series at the Riverside Studios in London is coming to an end. It is hard to believe, but true: When DEREVO travels back to start a three week holiday at the end of September nearly 10.000 people will have seen our 41 performances of "La Divina Commedia" in the UK - an enormous and unique effort for the actors, the technicians, the management and, last but not least, for our producers Green & Lenagan from London.

Especially the ceremony for the "total theatre award" in Edinburgh was a very memorable event in the long history of DEREVO. The jury of the Umbrella Organization for physical and visual theatre with its 500 members had decided to create a new prize especially for DEREVO - the prize for "outstanding excellence and innovation". Or as director Annabelle Arndt put it: "This award is going to a company who has consistently produced ground breaking work, for being the epitomy of what we see to be true Total Theatre".

The success in the UK is now followed by a special honour also in Germany: The invitation to Impulse-Festival in Nordrhein-Westfalen. This biggest festival for the "off-scene" in the German speaking area chooses around eight production per year from Germany, Austria and Switzerland and presents these in four cities of the biggest German state. We feel very pleased to be chosen for this prestigious event for the first time.

Most likely in Köln, Düsseldorf and Mülheim DEREVO will present six performances of "La Divina Commedia" between 14 and 30 November. At the end of September the exact dates will be published on our website. More information can also be found under www.nrw-kultursekretariat.de .

Even if we were not affected personally, the August floods left devastating damages behind in and around Dresden. Like in many other building the basement of Staatsschauspiel Dresden was completely flooded, the damage is estimated to be around 10 million Euro. The performance of "ONCE." that was planned to happen on the big stage on 30. October had to be moved, a new date should be found by the end of September - check it out on our website.

In the meantime we are planning our return to "Theater am Ufer" in Berlin. As a sort of "Christmas fairy tale for grown up children" we want to present "ONCE." there from 8 to 29 December. All big children are very welcome!

All best wishes,

Chester Mueller (Organizer)