The Day my Father became a Bush

adapted for stage by Susanne Koschig and Kathrin Blüchert

by Joke van Leeuwen

• setting: Kathrin Sellin
• cast: Kathrin Blüchert

„The day my father became a Bush and I lost my name, we were living somewhere else. At that time I never thought of it as somewhere else. Somewhere else was anywhere but not where we lived. Everyone used to pronounce my name, which has for K’s in it, easily. Where I live now, no one can. That’s why I now call myself Toda. Those are the last four letters of my long first name.“

Toda is a courageous young girl fleeing from war across the border to her mother´s place, because her father back home gets conscripted and learns how to camouflage himself as a bush. 

Toda tells the story of her escape, her many different adventures along the way and the various people she met: money-grubbing peoplesmugglers, children who should give their toys away, a friendly commander who is unable to command.

In a mixture of storytelling, acting, puppetry, shadow theatre and chalk drawing this soloperformance looks at war and refugees from the perspective of a child. The audience sits on stage and is invited to become part of the story.

This show had its premiere 2016 at Theater Waidspeicher in Erfurt. 

Since 2022 Kathrin Blücherts performs as a freelancer. The show is now part of her repertoire as „theater katinkaspringinsfeld“ and was invited to several festivals:

• 2017 - 14. Augenblick mal! Festival for young audiences, Berlin
• 2017 & 2022 – figuren.theater.festival Erlangen Nürnberg Schwabach Fürth
• 2018 -  World performers to children : GAVROCHE, Moskau
• 2021 – puppets in the green mountains, Brattleboro 
• 2023- Polepoppenspäler Tage, Husum
• 2024- Straubinger Figurentheaterfestival

The performance in Moscau was simultanously translated during the show- this was an hillarious effect, as the story and situation became very realistic through the obvious language gap...