Atelier Market - 2026 edition
The 2026 Atelier Market brings together six playwrights and texts within the broader Atelier for Playwrights programme. Three winning Atelier texts are presented through staged readings and are also available for professional meetings, while two additionally recommended texts are presented directly through meetings with interested STS guests. A sixth playwright, Rona Žulj, joins the Market through the STS collaboration with SPID / New Stages. Together, the Atelier Market connects new dramatic writing with programmers, producers, translators, publishers and other theatre professionals, creating opportunities for future staging, translation, production and international collaboration.
Meet the jury members who selected the winning texts of the 2026 Atelier for Playwrights.
Ivor Martinić
Country: Croatia, Spain
Playwright / Independent
Ivor Martinić graduated in Dramaturgy from the Academy of Dramatic Art in Zagreb. Since 2009, he has worked as a dramaturge with numerous theatres and festivals across the region. That same year, his first play, The Title of the Drama About Ante Is Written Here, premiered. Since then, he has written more than twenty plays, produced in over one hundred productions across the former Yugoslavia and internationally, with a particularly strong presence in South America. Since 2019, he has been the artistic director of T25, his own theatre company, where he writes, directs, and occasionally performs in his own work. In recent years, he has also become increasingly active as a mentor and educator, leading dramaturgy workshops, including the Sarajevo Atelier programme.
Maria Milisavljević
Country: Germany
Playwright / Independent
Maria Milisavljević is a playwright and one of the most prominent and influential voices in contemporary German theatre. Maria's works were produced by well-renowed theatres such as Deutsches Theater Berlin, Burgtheater Vienna, Thalia Theater Hamburg, Residenztheater Munich, Schauspielhaus Zürich as well as in New York, London, Toronto, and Mexico City. Maria has won multiple awards, mostly recently for her play "Staubfrau", which won the 2025 Mülheim Dramatikpreis as well as the Audience Award. In 2026, Maria also received the Else-Lasker-Schüler-Drama-Award for her life's work. She further holds a Ph.D. in Cultural Studies and works as a translator, translating amongst other the works of Anne Carson, Sam Max, and Gracie Gardner into German. Maria lives in Berlin.
Bernhard Studlar
Country: Austria
Playwright / Wiener Wortstaetten
Bernhard Studlar was born in Vienna. He studied Playwriting at the University of Arts in Berlin and since then has worked as a freelance writer. Bernhard won several prizes for his literary work. He has worked as a playwright, dramaturg and director in Austria, Germany and Switzerland for more than 20 years. His plays have been translated into several languages as English, Italian, Polish, Slovak or Turkish. He works as a mentor and tutor for various projects and institutions, for example "Fabulamundi. Playwriting Europe" or the University of Applied Arts Vienna. Bernhard Studlar is the founder of WIENER WORTSTAETTEN, an independent and unique project within the German-speaking area which encourages discussion and networking between local and international authors.
Biljana Srbljanović
Country: Serbia
Playwright, author and tenured professor;
Head of the Department of Dramaturgy;
Programme Editor / University of Arts in Belgrade /
Heartefact Fund
Biljana Srbljanović is an award-winning playwright, author and tenured professor at the University of Arts in Belgrade, where she chairs the Department of Dramaturgy. Her plays have been translated into 25 languages and staged internationally, earning numerous recognitions, including six Sterija Awards and the Joakim Vujić Lifetime Achievement Award. A Fulbright alumna, she has lectured at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts and served as a visiting professor in Vienna and Milan. She is also the creator of the influential television series Open Doors, co-host of the podcast Pleasure in the Text, and a long-standing advocate for LGBTI+, women's and minority rights.
Asja Krsmanović Imamović
Country: Bosnia and Herzegovina
Curator, dramaturge / Sarajevo Theatre Showcase
Asja Krsmanović Imamović is a Bosnian dramaturge, screenwriter and cultural manager. A graduate of the Academy of Performing Arts in Sarajevo, she has worked across theatre, film and cultural project development for more than a decade. Since 2011, she has held multiple roles within the Sarajevo Film Festival, contributing to the development of its artistic, educational and industry programmes. She also served as Head of the Atelier for Playwrights within the Sarajevo Theatre Showcase and has worked as a dramaturge, screenwriter and assistant director on numerous theatre and film projects.
Ana Tomović
Country: Serbia
Theatre director / Independent
Ana Tomović (b. 1979, Belgrade) graduated in theatre directing from the Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Belgrade. She taught as an assistant professor at FDU (2019–2024) and currently teaches at the FMK. She has directed over twenty productions based on works by Brecht, Dostoevsky, Shakespeare, Bergman, Milena Marković and others, at theatres including the National Theatre, the Yugoslav Drama Theatre, Atelje 212, Serbian National Theatre and region. She is a two-time recipient of the "Joakim Vujić" Award for directing; her production Brod za lutke (Ship for Dolls) won the Sterija Theatre Festival in 2009. She has worked as an ass. director to Frank Castorf, Bobo Jelčić, and Stephan Kimmig. She is co-screenwriter of the film No One's Child (Ničije dete), which won over 30 international awards.
Ivan Plazibat
Country: Croatia
Theatre director / Independent
Ivan Plazibat is a theatre director from Croatia. He has directed 40 plays in Croatia, Slovenia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina in theatres such as HNK Split, HNK Varaždin, HNK Osijek, HNK Zagreb, HNK Ivan pl. Zajc, Kunst Teatar Zagreb, BNP Zenica, SARTR Sarajevo, GP Jazavac, MGL Ljubljana, and many others. His plays have been performed at numerous festivals throughout the region, such as the Dubrovnik Summer Festival, Sterjinino Pozorje, Marulićevi Dani, Teatar Fest Petar Kočić, and others. In the 2023/2024 season, he was the artistic director of the Drama Department of HNK Split.
Winning & Recommended Texts
WINNING TEXT 1
COWS / KRAVE
MATEJA KARDELIS
Playwright, SERBIA/GERMANY
Title in original language
KRAVE
Title in English
COWS
Languages available
English and Serbian
Synopsis
Both ran away. To find a shelter. To find themselves. They’ve been on the run for the last couple of weeks, for the last twelve years. Overwhelmed by work and trapped in endless conversations with her family, a scientist is assigned to investigate the disappearance of a cow that escaped the slaughterhouse and unsettled an entire society. Living between countries, she keeps secret her relationship with her partner abroad. As she searches for the animal, she encounters slaughterhouse workers struggling under exhausting conditions, young people who turn the cow into a symbol of resistance, and a media landscape that transforms the escape into a public spectacle. Television debates, newspaper headlines and rumors expose the fears, hopes and contradictions of a society trying to make sense of the cow’s escape. What begins as a search for a missing animal gradually becomes an attempt to confront everything the scientist herself has been running away from: her family, her relationship and the life she has built in secrecy.
Author biography
Mateja Kardelis, born 2001 in Novi Sad, writes and translates in German, English, and BKS. He holds a BA in theatre directing and currently studies at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne. His work moves between theatre and cinematic form, exploring memory, liminal spaces, and queer-feminist utopias.
WINNING TEXT 2
4 HORSEMEN OF THE APOCALYPSE / 4 JEZDECI APOKALIPSE
NIKA ŠOŠTARIČ
Playwright, SLOVENIA
Title in original language
4 JEZDECI APOKALIPSE
Title in English
4 HORSEMAN OF THE APOCALYPSE
Languages available
English and Slovenian
Synopsis
One November night, in the bedroom, Death visits twenty-nine-year-old Lora and invites her to come with her. Lora slips away and decides to hide so well that Death will not find her for a long time. She returns to her hometown for her grandmother’s funeral, where she is haunted by a stench that only she can smell. This is a story of transgenerational pain, passed down from one generation to another. A story about silence and the ways it dictates the course of a life. About the shadows of violence that Lora carries with her every day. About a woman confronting the ghosts of a past she has been forced to forget. This is a story about uncovering the face of death. About the patriarchal stagnation of a hometown that refuses to change. About the things women are taught to endure, bury and forget. This is a story about Eve and, by extension, about every woman who has ever cried.
Author biography
Nika Šoštarič is collaborating with SNG Drama Ljubljana as dramaturg (A Streetcar Named Desire, An Enemy of the People). Her plays have been published and presented as stage readings (How to Unsew a Shade?, What Do Butterflies Dream About?, House on the Edge of the World, Scream Under a Red Mask).
WINNING TEXT 3
THE MOON RESTS IN MY GRANDMOTHER / U MOJOJ BABI MJESEC
ANITA ČEKO
Playwright, CROATIA / SWITZERLAND
Title in original language
U MOJOJ BABI MJESEC
Title in English
THE MOON RESTS IN MY GRANDMOTHER
Languages available
English and Croatian
Synopsis
The story follows a pregnant author who arrives with a camera at her grandmother’s home in Bosnian village to seek advice on childbirth and to calm herself before the major transition into motherhood.
Author biography
Anita Čeko lives and works between Zagreb and Zürich. She graduated in Dramaturgy from the Academy of Dramatic Art and in Psychology from the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Zagreb. Her play So Far, Kandahar premiered at the Croatian National Theatre in Split (2025, director Tea Alagić).
RECOMMENDED TEXT 1
THE MAIDEN NAME / DJEVOJAČKO PREZIME
IVANA VUKOVIĆ
Playwright, CROATIA
Title in original language
DJEVOJAČKO PREZIME
Title in English
THE MAIDEN NAME
Languages available
English
Synopsis
Ema, an insecure feminist, is at her sister Ana’s bachelorette party in her new fancy smart house with their mother, grandmother, and the maid of honor, whom she has just met and with whom she does not share a single value. It’s not much different with her own family, but they have grown used to Ema’s silly ideas, such as opposing the patriarchal concept of marriage. At the same time, Ema is the only one who will keep the family name, and she uses it as an argument to fight for her place in the family. While they try to celebrate what turns out to be a fake bachelorette party and navigate different approaches to marriage and traditional values, Ana’s smart house starts to disobey orders.
Author biography
Ivana Vuković (Croatia, 1992) holds an MA degree in Dramaturgy and a BA degree in Literature. Her plays and devised theatre performances are staged in institutional theatres, on the independent scene, performed as radio plays, and awarded at national and regional theatre festivals and competitions.
RECOMMENDED TEXT 2
CUTE / KJUT
VARJA HRVATIN
Playwright, SLOVENIA
Title in original language
KJUT
Title in English
CUTE
Languages available
English
Synopsis
Cute is a play about solidarity, resistance and the complexities of female friendship, set within the seemingly invisible and innocent (patriarchal) violence. The play establishes a world of cuteness, games, playfulness and interweaves elements of violence that are rooted in the smallest of situations. It is formally structured as a fragmented interactive piece that allows the reader and the audience to choose it’s own path of narration. The play follows four different female characters, growing up from little girls to grown women, facing different challenges of their womanhood throughout different periods of their life. They invent different games and characters to pass their time, and finally, to create a secret club of flies fighting against violence. A series of painful events and a tragic experience brings them closer into finding active ways to help and repair what is broken.
Author biography
Varja Hrvatin is a playwright, dramaturge and producer. Her plays have been published in different publications. Her play It All Started With The Bunny Rabbit Goulash (2020) brought her the best young playwright award. Her play Fairies in Slovenia (2025) was nominated for best original Slovenian play.
SPID/NEW STAGES PRESENTS
AT LEAST ONE SUCCESS TODAY / BAREM JEDAN USPJEH DANAS
RONA ŽULJ
Playwright, CROATIA
Title in original language
BAREM JEDAN USPJEH DANAS
Title in English
AT LEAST ONE SUCCESS TODAY
Languages available
English and Croatian
This playwright is presented at STS 2026 through our collaboration with New Stages, a project organised by the Croatian Screenwriters and Playwrights Guild (SPID), Goethe-Institut Kroatien, KunstTeatar and the Croatian Centre of ITI. The project focuses on developing new dramatic texts by a younger generation of authors, actively positioning their work within the theatre and literary scene, and contextualising contemporary playwriting.
Synopsis
Sixteen performers tell a woman who she is. They encounter her first as an awkward girl figuring out how to pose for a camera. Through a succession of poses, appearances and imagined scenes, she is cast as model, desirable woman, wife, mother, First Lady, icon and, eventually, object of worship. The unnamed “you” gradually resolves into Melania Trump, then begins to come apart again, drifting further from biography and deeper into collective invention. No performer owns the role: the text can pass from one body to another at any moment, turning a single life into a shifting chorus of judgement, instruction, admiration and projection. They see a gesture and tell her what it means. They manufacture psychology from posture, sexual desire from a hand gesture, character from clothes. Soon they are manufacturing more than interpretations: fears, memories, wishes, private fantasies and entire alternative realities begin to grow out of the smallest visible detail. At Least One Success Today follows the slippery movement from observing a woman to interpreting her, from interpreting her to inventing her, and finally from inventing her to manufacturing her.
Author biography
Rona Žulj (Zagreb, 1985) is a playwright, dramaturg and screenwriter. She graduated in Dramaturgy from the Academy of Dramatic Art in Zagreb and has worked extensively in contemporary theatre as a playwright, dramaturg, performance-text author and director. She is a co-founder of the independent theatre company Rebel Theatre. Her theatre work includes Geography Victims, The Piano Teacher, Irina’s Soul Is Like an Expensive Piano, Fury Revolution Revival Tour, Crisis Headquarters, Trending, King Ubu and Help Is Available, among others. Her plays include The Sun Laughs, Love Songs for Good Girls, Melania Doesn’t Give a Hand and At Least One Success Today, developed as part of the New Stages 2025 residency. She also writes for film and animation. She co-wrote the animated feature Cricket & Antoinette, winner of the Golden Arena for Best Screenplay at the 2023 Pula Film Festival.