Tabori Prize

The Tabori Prize honors continuously visible work with a high national and international resonance, which is relevant in terms of content, sometimes provocative, and is marked by aesthetic innovation. The prize is endowed with €25,000.

In addition to the Tabori Prize, the jury also presents two awards, each worth €15,000. With these awards, it is reacting to current developments and honors experimental, courageous formats by artists and groups that have impressed through a unique debut or through the continuous development of an experimental format.

A jury of five experts selects the winners from all the groups and artists that have received funding from the Fonds Darstellende Künste in the past five years.

In 2022, for the first time the Fonds also awarded a third international award to independent, internationally active and touring artists or groups who impressed with their outstanding aesthetics and committed content. The Tabori International Award, also endowed with €15,000, is decided by an independent, international jury of experts.

With the awarding of the prize and the awards, the Fonds Darstellende Künste supports the visibility, public perception, and artistic work of significant positions in the independent performing arts.

The Tabori Prize commemorates the extraordinary director and author George Tabori, who was born in Budapest on May 24, 1914. In 1966, he founded the independent theater group The Strolling Players in New York, among others, and caused a major sensation with his "Bremer Theaterlabor" from 1975 to 1978, as well as 10 years later with the theater "Der Kreis” in Vienna. Throughout his life, he was one of the most creative pioneers who crossed borders between "independent theaters" and municipal and state theaters in the German-speaking world with his bold theatrical and nightmarish ideas. From 1999 until shortly before his death on July 23, 2007, he worked and directed at the Berliner Ensemble.