The Many Voices of My Brother | Austria
Written by Magdalena Schrefel
Translated by Neil Blackadder
Directed by John Green
In partnership with
Synopsis: A young man afflicted with a rare genetic disorder explains to his sister that before long he’ll lose the ability to speak. She helps him find his way to a new voice – or rather, to many new voices. Why should he be restricted to only one? Why shouldn’t he have a different voice for each life situation? This award-winning play based on the real-life experiences of the playwright and her brother provides a moving theatrical exploration of disability and representation.
Playwright - Magdalena Schrefel
Translator -Neil Blackadder
Director - John Green
Playwright - Magdalena Schrefel, born in Vienna in 1984, studied European ethnology at the University of Vienna and creative writing at the German Literature Institute in Leipzig after spending extended periods working in Vukovar and Gothenburg. Her play Ein Berg, viele (One Mountain, Many) was, in 2020, awarded the Kleist Prize and the 3rd Else Lasker-Schüler Play Prize, and the radio play version, produced by BR and ORF, was voted Radio Play of the Month for October 2020. In 2022 she published a collection of short stories under the title Brauchbare Menschen (Useful People), which was awarded the Robert Walser Prize in 2022. Die vielen Stimmen meines Bruders (The Many Voices of My Brother), co-written with Valentin Schuster, was awarded the Nestroy Prize in the category Best Play – Author's Prize in 2024; the radio play version was voted both Radio Play of the Month for December (2023) as well as Best Original Radio Play of the Year by the Austrian broadcasting company ORF in 2024. In January 2026, Schrefel published her first novel Das Blaue vom Himmel (The Blue of the Sky) which tells a story of loss both in the natural as well as the family context.
Translator - Neil Blackadder translates drama and prose from German and French. He has contributed many translations to IVP, including of plays by Lukas Bärfuss, Mishka Lavigne, and Ewald Palmetshofer that were later produced by theatres in Chicago, London, New York, and elsewhere. In 2019, Neil retired from 25 years as a professor of theatre at Duke University and Knox College. He has received grants from the NEA, PEN, and the Howard Foundation, and recently published his translation of the non-fiction book Sanderling by Anne Weber. In Spring 2023, Neil was Translator in Residence at Princeton University.
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