HNK2EU Brings Berliner Ensemble to HNK2: Tena Štivičić’s “The Scattered”Drama — 23. September 2026.
One of Germany’s most renowned theatres will make its first guest appearance hosted by the Croatian National Theatre in Zagreb, with both performances at the new HNK2 venue already sold out. Following the performance, a conversation will be held with the actresses of the Berliner Ensemble and playwright Tena Štivičić, moderated by dramaturg Dino Pešut.
As part of HNK2EU – the European Theatre Series in Zagreb, the Croatian National Theatre in Zagreb will welcome Berliner Ensemble, one of Germany’s most renowned theatres. On 2 and 3 October, the Berlin company will perform The Scattered (Die Verstreuten) by Tena Štivičić at HNK2, directed by Laura Linnenbaum. Both performances are already sold out.
A special part of the company’s Zagreb visit will be a post-show discussion with the artists, moderated by dramaturg Dino Pešut. The discussion will feature actresses from Berliner Ensemble and playwright Tena Štivičić, giving audiences an opportunity to hear first-hand about the creation of the production, its themes and the creative process behind it.
Berliner Ensemble’s visit is an important part of HNK2EU, the new international series through which the Croatian National Theatre in Zagreb brings leading European theatres, productions, playwrights and directorial approaches to Zagreb audiences. The series opened in early September with a guest appearance by the Ivan Vazov National Theatre from Sofia and its production of Arms and the Man, directed by John Malkovich.
The Scattered was created for Berliner Ensemble, where it received its world premiere on 21 March 2025 at the Neues Haus.
At the centre of the play is Barbara, a mother who gathers her four adult daughters together ahead of a routine operation. Scattered across Europe, they lead very different lives, and their family reunion raises questions about relationships, belonging, life choices and social divisions. The experience of the pandemic has further transformed the relationships between the sisters and their ideas about the future.
“It was a great challenge for me to embark on writing a play for an unfamiliar cultural and artistic context. This partly shaped the story itself, which deals with people living between shared places, languages and senses of belonging. I am delighted that the production has found such a strong life on the Berliner Ensemble stage, and I am very pleased that, following its world premiere in Berlin, audiences in Zagreb will now have the opportunity to see it as well,” said Tena Štivičić, whose play The Scattered received the 2025 Helene Weigel Award.
Berliner Ensemble’s visit also serves as a kind of prelude to the Croatian National Theatre in Zagreb’s new drama season. The Croatian production of The Scattered, performed by the Drama ensemble of the Croatian National Theatre in Zagreb and directed by Nina Rajić Kranjac, will premiere on 8 January 2027. Within the space of just a few months, Zagreb audiences will therefore have the rare opportunity to encounter the same contemporary play in two different theatrical interpretations.
“Berliner Ensemble’s first guest appearance hosted by the Croatian National Theatre in Zagreb is an important event for our audiences and a further step in establishing HNK2 internationally. Through the HNK2EU programme, we want to give Zagreb audiences the opportunity to encounter leading European theatres and a variety of artistic approaches. We are particularly delighted that Berliner Ensemble is coming with a production by Tena Štivičić, a Croatian playwright whose new work was written for their ensemble. HNK2 thus becomes a meeting place for Croatian playwriting, one of Europe’s important theatre companies and Zagreb audiences, while this guest appearance also opens up an intriguing dialogue with our own production of The Scattered, which will premiere in early 2027,” said Dr Iva Hraste Sočo, General Manager and Artistic Director of the Croatian National Theatre in Zagreb.
Berliner Ensemble was founded in Berlin in 1949, and its history is closely associated with Bertolt Brecht and the development of modern European theatre. Today, it is one of the most distinctive and internationally significant theatres on the German theatre scene.
The HNK2EU programme continues in November with a guest appearance by the Slovene National Theatre Nova Gorica, which will bring Tomi Janežič’s original project 1973 to HNK2. The production was created as part of the official programme of the European Capital of Culture GO! 2025.
