Interview with Fae & Katharina

In this interview, I had the great pleasure of doing an interview with the wonderful Fae & Katharina to talk about the much-anticipated upcoming VOILA! Theatre Festival. These two co-directors shared insights into what audiences can expect from next year's festival, as well as the inspiration and hard work behind bringing this festival to life. All answers represent both retrospectively.

This year marks Voila!’s twelfth edition - how would you describe the journey of the festival from its beginnings to where it is today?

Evolving. Adventurous. Nurturing. Voila! began, almost accidentally, in 2012 as a French and English bilingual festival, when The Cockpit’s director Dave Wybrow happened to programme a handful of French companies around the same time. In light of the Brexit referendum, it was then exanded to include all European languages and artists and Voila! Europe was born. But soon this didn’t feel quite right either, as the concept of what or who was ‘European’ was problematic and the festival increasingly programmed more international collaborations (for example a french-columbian show in 2022) - so we have now opened up the festival to include all languages of the world and the festival is just called Voila! Theatre Festival. The core ethos of the festival never changed, but we feel it is very important to react to what is going on around us, evaluate, reimagine and above all, interrogate what artists need in the contemporary creative world.

The 2025 programme is the festival’s biggest yet, with 110 shows across eight venues. What have been the main challenges and rewards of curating something on this scale?

Planning a multivenue, panlingual festival with international artists involved, we need to take into account additional practical as well as creative obstacles. This could be travel logistics or figuring out how to sub/surtitle a show – especially if it uses multiple languages or no English. Artists might not have a huge network in London or be familiar with the theatre landscape in the UK, so we always make sure we clearly outline how the festival works and are honest about expectations and risks. As with a lot of small arts organisations and creative teams, our main challenge is time and resources, both of which we wish we had more.

The rewards for us (& Voila audiences!) are that we get to connect with really exciting artists and see lots of work in different languages, like for example Woo Woolf, a playful protest to meet Virginia Woolf across time and culture, which uses English, Cantonese, Chinese, Mandarin and Hokkien. Or Schlaflos/Sleepless by German company Pailette Theater, which is a poetic dialogue between storytelling and live electronic music in French and German, using English Surtitles.

What drew you both to working on Voila! - was there a particular moment or

experience that made you want to champion multilingual theatre?

We both started out as artists at Voila!, bringing shows to the festival in 2018, 2019 and 2020. For me (Katharina) it very much felt like that at Voila! I had finally found a festival that values me and my work as an artist. Someone that ‘understood’ that theatre can be something different than a linear narrative, who was open to new ideas and ways of performance. That not everything had to make sense, that I was allowed to make work that asked something of the audience too. That we could have our own accents on stage and just make the work we wanted to do, without someone asking us Why this now? At the festival, I

was able to see the work and artists I was missing on the UK stages. As long as we’re still hearing stories about actors not being cast because of their accent, we want to continue to celebrate the skills of migrant artists and their multilingual ability, ratherbthan seeing it as a problem. Working across languages is so beautiful and contributes so much to breaking down barriers, so we want to keep going and engage with even more culturally curious audiences.

With 70 languages represented, how do you approach accessibility - not just for audiences, but for artists as well?

A lot of the shows at Voila! will have English as their ‘base’ language, interwoven and infused with other languages. Through non-textual context, and the performance of the actors, there is usually no issue of understanding and experiencing a performance, even if you don’t speak a particular language. Theatre in itself is a form of communication and especially with work in multiple languages, it lends itself to experimenting beyond the spoken  word.

On a more practical level, for artists, we try to be very clear in terms of what we as the festival can provide and what we can’t provide. We are transparent about the costs involved and time needed to bring a show to the festival and hold an info zoom session during the application window, so artists can make an informed decision. In the lead up and during the festival we try and be available for any questions artists might have and try to actively support them.

What do you look for when selecting work from the open call each year?

Fae and myself select the Voila! shows for The Cockpit, and since we expanded into a multi- venue festival in 2024, it has been so great to see other venues programme Voila! shows, making it possible to platform even more exciting work!

We don’t set a theme or have any set in stone parameters according to which we select the programme. But we do look at a variety of points: What is the connection to the panlingual/international ethos of the festival? What stage is the work at? Does it fit the space? Who is the artist? Above all, we are looking for work that wouldn’t otherwise be found on British stages, that is that little bit different, edgy, bold and where we feel the artists  might struggle to find a platform. But it’s not all crazy glitter and blood, we want the work to be accessible. For example this year, we have Flitsmeister, a techno-opera by an up and coming dutch director, Leah Eliaan, which examines the rise of right wing beliefs amongst young people. Or we have The Lift, by a Lithuanian artist Rasa Niurkaité, which is a surreal tale about learned helplessness, told through the story of a lift operator.

Fringe and experimental theatre can often be a space for bold political or cultural ideas. How do you see Voila! contributing to that conversation in 2025?

Fringe theatre is the incubator space for bold ideas, it’s where many artists start out and yet it gets far too little coverage and acknowledgment by the wider industry. If I read one more article that says the fringe is dead…That’s not to say there aren’t massive problems within the fringe systems, of course there are, the way smaller venues struggle, the financial burdens, which sadly often lie on the artists themselves, the list goes on. But what is the alternative? Not make fringe theatre? The only real solution would be a total revamp of the arts funding system, which I can not see happening anytime soon. But if we keep reading that the fringe is dead or that there are no scratch nights or artists development opportunities, it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy, where artists might be too discouraged to continue this path and then we will definitely lose an important pillar to platform bold and political work.

The UK is quite unique with its big fringe scene, in the other countries I have worked in, it just doesn’t exist like that - you are either in the inner circle or you are not, and if you are not, it is pretty much impossible to get your work seen. So because of this ‘freedom’, I believe fringe theatre is incredibly important and Voila! wants to contribute to this - to platform work by emerging and established artists alike, work that might struggle to find a platform elsewhere. And above all, Voila! can introduce British audiences to theatre landscapes and artists of different countries, opening up a conversation and exploring together the many forms that theatre can take. It is about inspiring a curiosity in audiences, a sense of adventure, trying something new and embracing spontaneity.

This year features both established and emerging voices. How important is mentorship and early-career support to the festival’s vision?

I would say it is part of the core ethos of the festival. We’ve always had this great mix of more established artists, often using the festival and its outreach to premiere new work. Or they might use it as their London run of a piece that has been touring - we get a lot of work from the Edinburgh Fringe and vice versa - a lot of artists try out work with us before making the big leap.

On the other hand, we also get a lot of artists who are newly graduated or where Voila! might be their first experience of bringing work to a festival. We try to create lots of space for exchange and networking - on zoom in the lead up to the festival, on our opening night and with drop in sessions during the festival. Choosing a career in the arts, especially in theatre, is a very courageous act and we want to do everything we can to support artists, whether they are new to the industry or have been going for a while. We want to share skills and support artists, not just for Voila!, but for their future projects and we love to see so many Voila! artists very successfully still pursuing their careers.

The programme spans everything from physical theatre to opera remix to AI -driven performance. How do you maintain a coherent artistic identity across such variety?

The focus of the Voila! Festival programme is on work that is panlingual and led by migrant artists. Within those parameters, we do not set any other guidelines, we want to let artist make (and present) the work they need to make. So far, this has been an approach that has worked well for us - by nature we always get quite a few shows that interrogate the migrant experience, identity and belonging. But because there is such a wide variety of artists, performance techniques and approaches to these topics, we learn something new every year and it remains a crucial cornerstone of the festival. But the overall programme is very varied, especially since we opened the festival to languages from across the globe - it’s really cool to see what kind of work and which topics are immediate, for example for the Mexican Artists we have in the festival this year.

What are you personally most looking forward to seeing during this year’s festival?

K: There are so many shows I want to see, but it is secretly my favourite part of the festival. I’m intrigued by the work of Japanese artist Rika Fujimoto, which is called DOGMA - about beauty - plan B, on how to recognize beauty beyond the physical. Then, as I have started learning Farsi about six months ago, I want to see Unattended Objects by Maghsood Arashloo, an intimate autobiographical show about exile. And there is also Imprints by The Palimpsest Project, which uses live cinema and puppetry to tell a haunting coming of age story about nostalgia and uncertainty. The festival champions “citizens of everywhere.” In a time of increasing division, what role do you think theatre plays in uniting communities? I think festivals and events like Voila! are really important because they open up a conversation, a space to meet each other, and connect, to break down those barriers and borders, hence our slogan – border busting theatre for citizens of everywhere. Theatre and performance can tell us so much about a country's cultural landscape and its people - I think it is a great way to get to know your neighbour, whether that is as an artist or an audience member. Theatre in its liveness naturally connects people, we have to all be there, in that moment, together. In those shared moments we get to experience stories and emotions, which can be a very powerful tool to start a conversation.

Finally, what’s your biggest hope for the future of Voila! Theatre Festival and the artists it supports?

We hope to be able to continue platforming the work of migrant artists, bring panlingual work to audiences and engage with local communities around our venues. We want to carry on giving audiences a unique opportunity to encounter something new and surprising that they might not have seen before, at the same time as bringing a piece of home to others - there’s something very special about seeing theatre in your mother tongue. I dream of expanding Voila! to other cities in the UK and maybe one day, even partner with venues in other countries, for it to become a global exchange. We have started this with our partnership with Thessaloniki Fringe and are keen to develop more collaborations like this in future.

Voila! Theatre Festival is London’s panlingual festival that celebrates emerging artists from all different backgrounds and cultures. The festival runs across eight London venues until 23rd November. Full information can be found via this link: https://www.voilafestival.co.uk