Milo Rau

Milo Rau, born 1977 in Bern, is the artistic director of the Vienna Festival (Wiener Festwochen) | Free Republic of Vienna. Critics call him the "most influential" (Die Zeit), "most interesting" (De Standaard), "most controversial" (La Repubblica), "most scandalous" (New York Times) or "most ambitious" (The Guardian) artist of our time. The director and author, who is known for his work at the interface of art and activism, has published over 100 plays, films, books and actions. His theatre productions have been shown at all major international festivals, including the Berlin Theatertreffen, the Festival d'Avignon, the Venice Biennale, the Vienna Festival and the Kunstenfestivaldesarts in Brussels, and have been touring in over 30 countries worldwide. From 2018 to 2024 Milo Rau was Artistic Director of NTGent (Belgium).

Milo Rau has received many awards, including the 3sat Prize 2017, the Saarbrücken Poetics Lectureship for Drama 2017 and, as the youngest artist after Frank Castorf and Pina Bausch, the renowned ITI Prize of the World Theatre Day in 2016. In 2017, Milo Rau was voted Director of the Year in a survey conducted by Deutsche Bühne, in 2018, he received the European Theater Prize for his work and in 2019 he was the first artist ever to be appointed Associated Artist of the European Association of Theatre and Performance – EASTAP. In 2020 he received the renowned Münster Poetry Lectureship for his complete artistic oeuvre. His plays were voted "Best of the Year" in critics' surveys in over 10 countries. In 2019, he received an honorary doctorate from Lund University in Sweden, in 2020 he was awarded an honorary doctorate from Ghent University. The Swiss Film Award followed in 2021 and in 2022, he gave the Lectures on Poetics at the University of Zurich. A star honours him on the ‘Sibiu Walk of Fame’ (2023) and the Bitef Festival honoured him with the Politika Award for Best Director in 2024.