Hedda Krausz Sjögren Interview

SBR: We’ll start at the beginning: How did the drama focus at the bookfair come about? How did you go about coordinating such an ambitious international collaboration?

Hedda Krausz Sjögren: It really started from a kind of quiet irritation. Drama is one of our oldest literary forms, yet it often ends up floating between worlds. It is not fully claimed by publishing, and it is not always treated as literature within theatre structures either. At Colombine we live inside that paradox every day, because we work with plays as texts first, even though they eventually become performances.

So when the possibility arose to shape a major programme at the bookfair, it felt like the right moment to say something very simple: drama belongs in the centre of literary life, not at its margins.

From early on, we knew it had to be international in a real sense. The programme grew into a Nordic-Baltic collaboration with strong European connections rather than a purely national showcase. In the end, nearly one hundred playwrights and dramaturgs from across Europe were present at the fair. That created an unusual density of exchange. Conversations that normally unfold slowly over time were suddenly happening all at once in the same corridors.

One important starting point for the curation was an open call. We received well over three hundred proposals from theatres, organisations, writers, and networks. That material, together with suggestions from our partners, became the foundation for shaping the programme. It meant that the focus did not emerge from a single institutional perspective, but from a broad field of artistic practices and questions that people were already working with.

Coordinating everything was ultimately about trust, long relationships, and a clear curatorial spine. We kept the formats relatively simple and worked closely with the bookfair team so that drama became part of the existing ecosystem rather than a separate ‘special event’. In a way, the most radical choice was simply to treat it as literature and to make it visible as such.

The drama thread of the bookfair programme included everything from panel discussions and dramatic readings to so-called ‘drama slams’. Could you tell us a little about how you brought drama into the bookfair space? What did you feel was important to spotlight with your programming?

A bookfair is designed for books, browsing, listening, discovering, meeting authors. Drama has to be translated into that environment without losing its nature. We tried to let it appear in several forms at once, as language, as ideas, and as living expression.

The readings were essential because they allowed visitors to encounter the writing directly, almost in a raw state. The panel discussions created space to reflect on process, politics, and aesthetics. The drama slams made it possible to experience dramatic writing immediately, without the scale or cost of full productions.

What mattered most to me was to keep the focus on the writer. In theatre culture the playwright can easily become invisible behind institutions and productions. We wanted the programme to keep returning to authorship, to the fact that plays are written works shaped by very distinct voices.

At the same time, we wanted to illuminate the ecosystem around the writing, translators, rights structures, commissioning models. Those conditions shape what gets written and what survives.

Some of the most memorable programme formats were also the simplest. One example was a session called ‘What is a line?’. A dramaturg and an actor worked with a single line each from two different plays. By performing and analysing them together, they showed how meaning emerges in the space between the playwright’s text and the actor’s interpretation. It was a very small format, but it captured something essential about the nature of dramatic writing.

This project speaks to drama as an integral form of literature. How do you feel about the current interface between drama and publishing, and do you think this bookfair focus has affected publishers’ attitudes towards drama at all?

The interface is still fragile. Drama sits between systems, and that in-between position creates blind spots. Publishers may hesitate because the market seems uncertain, while theatres often treat the text as an internal working document rather than a public literary object.

Yet something is shifting. There is growing movement between forms. Many writers move freely between prose, stage, film, and audio, and that is slowly changing how publishers think about drama. Adaptation has also become a major point of contact between the literary and performing arts worlds.

The bookfair focus did not transform the landscape overnight, but it made something tangible happen. It created direct encounters between editors and playwrights, between literary agents and theatre professionals. It also allowed publishers to see drama as part of the contemporary literary conversation rather than a niche area. That shift in perception is small but important, because it affects what gets translated, published, and supported over time.

What was your sense of the public response to the theme at the fair? What most stood out to you, or stayed with you from the fair?

What surprised me most was how receptive audiences were once drama was simply made visible. Many visitors did not arrive as theatre specialists. They came with curiosity and discovered writers they had never encountered before. That told me something important, that drama does not lack an audience, it often lacks the right context.

There was also a very particular feeling created by the sheer number of playwrights present. With nearly one hundred dramatists and dramaturgs from across Europe, especially from the Nordic and Baltic regions, for a few days the fair became an unusually concentrated meeting place for contemporary dramatic writing. You could feel that density everywhere, in spontaneous conversations, in the queues after readings, in the sense that people were encountering one another across borders and traditions.

What stayed with me most were the quiet moments. When a reading made a busy exhibition hall fall completely silent, or when a conversation about writing suddenly became deeply personal in the middle of a trade fair setting. Those moments felt like small reminders of why this work matters.

As the driving force behind this project, but also through Colombine teaterförlag’s day-to-day work, you have a unique insight into the current landscape for the performing arts in Sweden. What do you feel are the greatest challenges now facing drama, and what areas are thriving?

The greatest challenge is structural sustainability. Theatre institutions are under pressure, financially and politically, and when resources tighten the system tends to become cautious. New writing requires time, dramaturgical support, and commissioning models that recognise the value of the writer’s work. Without those conditions, the pipeline of new plays becomes fragile.

Visibility is another challenge. Playwrights are still not always clearly credited in public communication, which affects how the wider public understands drama as a literary form.

At the same time, there are many areas of vitality. There is a remarkable generation of writers working across forms, moving between stage, prose, film, and sound. International exchange within the Nordic region is strong, and there is growing interest in translation and circulation beyond national borders. Adaptation is also thriving, which can become a powerful bridge between literary and theatrical worlds if it remains a genuine dialogue rather than a one-way extraction of content.