14 May 2018

O.E. Hasse Prize 2018 awarded to Noah Saavedra

The O.E. Hasse Foundation has awarded the O.E. Hasse Prize 2018 to Noah Saavedra, student of acting at the University of Performing Arts Ernst Busch. The prize is endowed with EUR 5,000 and is presented on an annual basis in alternation to students of the Otto Falckenberg School of the Performing Arts, Munich and the University of Performing Arts Ernst Busch, Berlin in order to promote outstanding talents. The award ceremony will take place on 24 May 2018 in Berlin following a scene study from Saavedra's student work, Bedtime Story by Sean O'Casey. The laudation will be given by Akademie member Klaus Völker.

Noah Saavedra, an Austrian born in 1991, gained his initial experience on stage from 2012 to 2013 with Vienna Burgtheater's "Junge Burg". He then went on to study acting at the Music and Arts University of the City of Vienna from 2013 to 2015. Since autumn 2015, he has been a student at the University of Performing Arts Ernst Busch in Berlin. In 2016, he played the lead role in the film and portrait of the artist Egon Schiele: Tod und Mädchen.

Excerpt from the jury statement by Klaus Völker:
"Noah Saavedra has surprised me again and again in various performances of scenes with the incredible intensity of his acting, with his musicality and with the extremely versatile artistry of his personifications. He gave convincing performances as the morbidly cynical Freder in Ferdinand Bruckner's Krankheit der Jugend, as well as in Pavel Kohout's slightly absurd one-act play Evol, as the obsessively enamoured merchant Rogozhin in Dostoevsky's The Idiot and – in a very funny, slapstick performance – as John Mulligan in Bedtime Story by Sean O'Casey."

The O.E. Hasse Prize has been awarded since 1981 by the O.E. Hasse Foundation, which is administered by the Akademie der Künste. The Akademie is thus fulfilling the legacy of the stage and film actor Otto Eduard Hasse (1903-1978) in order to promote young acting talent. The prize is awarded by the Foundation's Board of Directors, which includes Chairpersons Klaus Missbach (Vienna) and Max Wiener (Zurich), as well as André Jung (Munich) and Klaus Völker (Berlin), both of whom are members of the Performing Arts Section of the Akademie der Künste. The winners in recent years were William Bartley Cooper (Munich, 2017), Joshua Jaco Seelenbinder (Berlin, 2016), Merlin Sandmeyer (Munich, 2015), Marcel Kohler (Berlin, 2014) and Anna Drexler (Munich, 2013).

Event notice:
Thursday, 24 May, 7.00 pm
University of Performing Arts Ernst Busch, Schnellerstr. 104, 12439 Berlin Award ceremony after Bedtime Story by Sean O'Casey
With Noah Saavedra, Sarah Maria Sander and Jan-Eric Meier (all third-year acting students), adapted by Eva Weissenborn.
For further information, see www.hfs-berlin.de