Dear friends,

it has been a long time since you have heard from me. So let me first send you my warmest greetings and best wishes for a happy and relaxing summer 2003.

It's unbelievable, that quite exactly one year ago the worst flood ever hit the city of Dresden. Now we are sweating with 30° Celsius, the river Elbe has not run dry, but because of the extremely low waters no ships can currently pass the city.

For DEREVO the summer 2003, like last year, will mean a lot of work - but we are all looking forward to it. Our new performance „ISLANDS in the STREAM" has developed very well and is now ready to be presented at the world's biggest (and craziest) festival: The Edinburgh Fringe.

DEREVO will show 21 performances from 2 - 25 August in Edinburgh. In hundredthousands of programmes by the Fringe Society and the Assembly Rooms / Pleasance we are announced to play the Assembly Ballroom. Just a little more than a week ago we had to take the hard and very unusual decision to move venues, after it proved technically impossible to to present ISLANDS in the STREAM there.

If you want to catch up with DEREVO in Edinburgh, and I hope a lot of you will, please look for us at ST STEPHENS, the venue in an old church that has gathered numerous prizes in its two years of existence - among them the prestigious award as „Best Venue". Whilst sad to leave the Assembly Ballroom at the same time we are happy to join ST STEPHENS and to hook up with a lot of old friends there.

So I have to say a huge Thank You to ST STEPHENS for making the last minute decision to have us there and just as much thank the Assembly Theatre for presenting DEREVO in this space and granting us all possible help with selling tickets and making our move public.

For all those people who have seen LA DIVINA COMMEDIA in Edinburgh last year, and there were 7.500 of you, I can promise another big surprise. Like it was years ago, when we presented ONCE... the year after playing RED ZONE, you will see the same company with a completely different work. But that's all I'm giving away here - come and see for yourself.

Please order your tickets soon: ST STEPHENS has a bigger stage, but a lot less places than the Assembly Ballroom. Our maximum audience capacity this year is not even half of what we had in Edinburgh a year ago.

When we return from Edinburgh at the end of August, another move is coming up. DEREVO will then join famous Festspielhaus Hellerau in Dresden - but more about this later. If you are interested you can check www.festspielhaus-hellerau.com to get an impression about the place where DEREVO will work in the future and where we plan to resume the teaching in our SCHOOL ON WHEELS.

Best wishes,
Chester Mueller