FREJA HALLBERG
playwright & director

Makes theatre. Makes space.

Come for the art. Stay for the aftershocks.

Not a voice, but a choir. Not a legacy. Disruption. Not an answer. A presence. Not an explanation. An experience. Not clarity. Complexity.

Not a voice, but a choir. Not a legacy. Disruption. Not an answer. A presence. Not an explanation. An experience. Not clarity. Complexity.

CURRENT WORK

Want a piece of me?

I work internationally as a Swedish playwright, director and artistic collaborator.
I'm interested in long-term partnerships, strong artistic frameworks, and conversations that challenge both form and thinking.

I don’t always fit into traditional formats – but if you're creating something open, ambitious or rule-breaking, I might be the right person.

Here are some ways:

  • Stage one of my existing plays – with or without me

  • Commission a new work

  • Invite me to your festival – for a talk, panel, keynote or jury duty

  • Ask me to write something – a provocation, programme text or artistic reflection

Practical info:

→ Want to co-produce or book a finished production? Contact SWEETS
→ Want to invite me as a curator or collaborator in programming? Contact Konträr
→ Want to commission new work, invite me as speaker or start something together? Contact me directly

Process. Space. Time. Collaboration. Form.
What happens when a work takes shape?

I don’t work linearly.
I don’t start small and build brick by brick.
I do many projects at once – and many parts of the process at once.

I accept the ideas that emerge and try to wait.
Time will reveal where they belong.

Often, the work brews quietly until something clicks.
Then I know what to do.

Many times, the room comes first.
Before the words. Before the order. Before the aim.

Everything is connected.
I prefer to decide things myself.

But I don’t work alone.

How I work

I don’t write plays to explain something.
I write to create a situation – for the audience, for the performers, for the room.
Something has to shift. Something has to stick.

I rarely work with main characters.
I’m more interested in relationships than individuals.
In what’s between people. Or under. Or unsaid.

I use structure like some use plot –
not to move forward, but to hold something in tension.
Time matters. Repetition matters. Absence matters.
Music helps.

I write fast, when it’s ready.
I don’t wait for the perfect idea.
I write to find out what it is.
What stays is often what surprises me.

Sometimes I don’t write at all.
Sometimes the writing comes after –
after rehearsals, after the bodies,
after the rhythm reveals itself.

The text is not the start.
It’s one part of a living structure.

I think about ethics in form.
About how a piece behaves. What it allows. What it demands.
I want the work to mean something – not just in content, but in how it happens.

I believe in confusion, in transformation,
and in staying with what’s hard to name.

I don’t write alone.
But the voice is mine.

How I write

Scenic thinking. Rhythm. Group. Presence.
How something becomes real – in a space, with people.

We create a world together.
I often begin by imagining the space – to understand what kind of world we’re in.
I direct through rhythm, energy and shifts in attention.
I care about the group. The feeling in the room.
The tension between fiction and presence.

I trust the performers – but I ask them to be honest.
I don’t want them to pretend we’re somewhere else.
We explore how breath, gaze, proximity and audience affect everything.

I observe, guide, and wait for the work to reveal itself.
Until then, we rehearse practical things:
singing in harmony, walking in rhythm, learning words, climbing the set.

Sometimes I don’t work like this at all.

But whatever the process –
it doesn’t tell a story.
It unleashes one.

How I direct

Formens etik

I care about what things do – not just what they say.
A piece can speak about freedom while enacting pressure.
It can talk about care while exhausting everyone in the room.
It can look experimental and still demand obedience.

I think about how a work behaves.
What it allows. What it demands.
How it treats the people inside it – on stage and in the audience.

I want to create forms that hold uncertainty
without punishing the ones who carry it.

I don’t want to protect the audience from difficulty.
But I don’t want to use them either.
If the work holds tension, the form has to hold us.

I trust the audience.
Not to “understand” –
but to feel what’s there.

Contact Me

Want to work together, invite me, or just say something?

📧 freja@frejahallberg.com

→ For booking of productions: SWEETS
→ For programming and curatorial invitations: Konträr

A woman speaking on a TV screen inside a home. The background shows a room with large glass windows and debris, possibly from a disaster or destruction.