13th HRTFestival - Open Call - Handmade And Recycled Theater Festival

Open call to the 13th edition of the Handmade & Recycled Theater Festival of Multi Active Group of Art Fabrica Athens in Greece
until May 31st, 2025

The Festival

Fabrica Athens Multi Active Group of Art invites you to the 13th Handmade & Recycled Theater Festival – Osmosis edition that will take place 18th – 28th of September 2025. The beloved festival returns to the neighborhood of Kerameikos, Athens, for the thirteenth consecutive year, more dynamic than ever. in Athens, Greece, based on Fabrica Art Space and Rektifie – Research Center of Mixed Performing Arts.

13 years handmade and recyclable!
13 years of creation!
13 years of HRTFest!

“What we did with effort, now it has a title.” The main theme of the Handmade and Recycled Theater Festival or HRTFest, as it is now called, is the idea of handmade and recyclable. Until now, the aim is to support independent artistic creation, to promote DIY initiatives and to cultivate an ever-expanding community of artists who share this way of thinking, perceiving and creating.

HRTFest is a multidisciplinary Festival giving voice to all art forms and creative expression to shine and coexist, exchange ideas, inspire each other, reach new audiences and get in touch with the local community. HRTFest stretches in the wider area of Kerameikos, Metaxourgeio and Votanikos neighborhoods downtown Athens, areas well known for their colorful and multicultural features.

13 years of Nationwide and International participation of all kinds! Performing and Visual Arts, Music and Handmade creations, Films and Children activities, Workshops and Book presentations; GREEN OBJECT competition – A theater competition that has turned into a habit; Theme Days for any artistic and cultural approach (Arts and Disabilities, LGBTQI+, Multicultural Athens, Femininities, Children and Youth, Senior Citizens); All of these are waiting for you to materialize!

After 13 years, Fabrica Athens invites you this year to co-create with it a unique Festival of Handmade & Recyclable Theater and Art!

We make art, once again, like the first time!

Hosted Art Fields

The title may point to a purely theatrical festival, though it covers all forms of art. The call is open to (not only) artists, tutors and researchers of any artistic field. HRTFest hosts:

Any Theater genre (prose, social theater, physical theater, street theater, shadow puppetry, puppet theater, theater for children, stand up comedy, improv comedy, devised theater etc.)
Performance (music performance, site specific performance, video & multimedia performance, drag show etc.)
Dance (contemporary dance, dancetheater, jazz dance, ballet, traditional dances etc.)
Circus (acrobatics, aerial arts, juggling, clowning, stilt walking, hoop dance etc.)
Music (live music, dj sets, chorus etc)
Workshops (seminars and masterclasses of any kind for minors and adults)
Cinema (feature and short films, documentary films, documentary films, music films, video art, video dance etc.)
Visual arts (painting, sculpture, collage, photography, architectural design, installations, site specific art, jewelry, mask, puppet and doll manufacturing, clothing, DIY etc.)
Lectures, debates, banquets, book presentations etc.

13th Handmade and Recycled Theater Festival – “Osmosis” edition

The theme of the 13th Handmade and Recycled Theater Festival by the title “Osmosis” draws inspiration from the conjugating outcomes of completely irrelevant materials or elements in nature. In this year’s HRTFest edition, interdisciplinary and intercultural artistic dialogue carries significant weight. We aim that different and seemingly irrelevant forms of artistic expression and cultural backgrounds will merge together crossing each other’s fragile lines and brewing a brand new artistic amalgam.

Thus, the 12th HRTFest becomes one more time international, with an open call for artists and artistic ensembles in and out of borders, so that new artistic and cultural exchanges and correlations may brew among the participants. Our goal is the artistic osmosis and collaboration between a variety of artists, cultural backgrounds and forms of expression, bringing to light the beauty of such a mixture.

Osmosis Performance

The idea of an artistic osmosis of creators, forms of art, communities, cultural backgrounds, different age groups, aesthetics and points of view has always been one of the central aims of HRTFest and Fabrica Athens Theater Group. Having this thought, we felt that this year is the time to co-create along with the participants a multidisciplinary theatrical landscape that can include all arts. This will be the capstone event for the 13th HRTFest.

All the participants – of visual/performing/musical arts etc. – will have the opportunity to participate in the “Osmosis Performance” with part of their work, co-creating the final performance that will be the signature of the 13th HRTFest. The final form of “Osmosis Performance” will be directed and revised by Fabrica Athens artists.

Theme Days

One of the main goals of HRTFest is to be fully inclusive and accessible to all cultural and societal subclasses, such as immigrants, disabled people, children and teenagers, seniors, LGBTQ +, students, artists, scholars, working class etc. To fulfill our goal, in the 2024 HRTFest edition, we took the initiative to include theme days & nights tributing social minorities. Theme Days drew the attention of many applicants last year and left an imprint in both the audience and the participants, during the 12th HRTFest. Hence, we decided to follow through and give more space to the dynamic gaining momentum.

We welcome creators of any kind to apply their works including or inspired by:

● people with disabilities in arts and today’s society – Arts & Disabilities
● the LGBTQI+ community and its artistic expression and culture – LGBTQI+ Beats
● the femininities expression in arts in today’s society – Femininities’ Voices
● the multicultural aspect of Athens City and/or the immigration flow cultural impact and reality both in Greece and the Western World in general – Multicultural Athens
● children and youth – Make Way for Tomorrow
● the senior citizens – Forever Art

Green Object

Fabrica Athens aspires to form a Festival that creates opportunities and gives financial support to the participating artists, in these difficult times we are going through. Specifically, launching the “Green Object” contest in the 9th Handmade and Recycled Theater Festival, our goal is to grow and advance this endeavor by motivating and supporting a constantly greater number of young artists and new artistic teams, so that they can have the opportunity to present and show their work, hoping that this festival will be the pivotal point and inspiration, through the interaction and exchange of ideas, for a new artistic journey.

Performance Contest

The central idea of this contest is to spark the creation of brand new performing projects – of up to 20’ duration – inspired by the name of the title. You can create a new work in progress performance and present it in the 13th HRTFest.

What does “Green Object” mean for you:

An actual green object in the scenery that affects the dramaturgy of your project

And/Or

An invisible “co-star” – a “green” idea, word or condition that affects the dramaturgy of your project

And/Or

A performance on an ecological subject

The Awards

Green Team Award:

A cash prize of 400€ & six (6) performances in one of Fabrica Athens venues on 50% profit share.

Green Team consists of Fabrica Athens members, former winners of the contest, and a guest of honor. The names will be announced soon.

Public Award:

A cash prize of 200€ & six (4) performances in one of Fabrica Athens venues on 50% profit share.

The public votes exiting by the end of each performance to their taste. The performance that has the highest amount of votes wins the prize.

Submission of proposals

Those who are interested in participating in the festival, need to fill in the application form below by the 31st of May 2025 (23:59, UTC +3. EEST).

All submissions will be informed about their participation or not in the Festival by the 10th of June 2025.

13th Handmade and Recycled Theater Festival : 18/09/2025 – 28/09/2025

First, read carefully the TERMS OF PARTICIPATION, please.

Apply Here: