Thomas Köck

Born 1986 in Steyr/Austria.

Thomas Köck lives and works as freelance author, playwright, photographer and theater maker between Upper Austria and Berlin. He studied philosophy, literature and sinology in Wien and at the FU Berlin, as well as creative writing for the stage at UdK Berlin and Literaturinstitut Leipzig.

For several years he worked as assistant and performer for Claudia Bosse/theatercombinat in Vienna and thereby accompanied projects at FFT Düsseldorf or at Watermill Center of Robert Wilson in Long Island, New York. Since 2012 he has been writing audio dramas, prose and intermediate forms, but mostly plays, that have been performed in the whole German-speaking area, at Theater Rampe Stuttgart, Nationaltheater Mannheim, Burgtheater Wien, Volkstheater Wien, Schauspielhaus Wien or Thalia Theater Hamburg, amongst others. He received several awards for his plays, for instance the Osnabrücker Dramatikerpreis, the Else-Lasker-Schüler-Stückepreis, the Kleist-Förderpreis and the Dramatik-Preis der österreichischen Theaterallianz. His plays are published with Suhrkamp Verlag and in the summer of 2016 a book with collected plays by Thomas Köck was also published there.

With a documentary project, which emerged from a long stay in Beirut, about the failed reconstruction of Beirut and the resulting social tensions after the civil war, he was invited to Berlinale Talents 2014. In addition, he was a fellow at Bachmann-Preis, Thomas-Bernhard-fellow at Landestheater Linz and Hausautor (house author) at Nationaltheater Mannheim. He organized reading and discourse series about contemporary theater in Berlin in cooperation with Lettrétage, Linz and Mannheim.

He has a special interest in interdisciplinary theater projects. For example, a dystopian live-audio drama in public space under the title Strotter was created at Schauspielhaus Wien or paradies fluten, a text for dance and drama, was staged as artistic crossover at several theaters. 

Thomas Köck is a fellow in cooperation with Theater Rampe.