A 504-hour-installation by Thomas Bo Nilsson
From April 14 until May 5, 2016
WORLD PREMIERE
Artistic director: Thomas Bo Nilsson

A sleepy small town. Through the entrance door of a simple single-family house - as we see them a million times all over Europe - we enter the abyss of a village community and meet inhabitants for whom the borders between reality and virtual reality have blurred a long time ago.
They have been playing a never ending devilish game in the cellar rooms of their houses that are connected like a labyrinth. Human ego shooters control the darkest areas of the tunnel system and the modern humiliated and insulted surrender themselves to an inscrutable mortal combat whilst they are permanently controlled by an anonymous mass via the internet. For 21 days and 21 nights „cellar Door“ will invite its audience at Schauspielhaus and on the internet to join this gloomy game and to get to know the human destinies behind the battered fighters of the underworld.
In a world that is characterised by frustration and brutality, online games and abysmal web-forums are the places where desires, wishes and hate forge ahead – everything that does not take place publicly in the social debate any more, at least not without the protective anonymity of internet pseudonyms. What is bubbling beyond the house facades, people’s foreheards, behind the masks?
As part of his first production at Schauspielhaus Vienna the Swedish installation artist Thomas Bo Nilsson is creating a walkable cosmos on the interface between performance and virtual reality with fourty performers (ensemble members and guests) throughout Schauspielhaus. Since 2008 Nilsson has been nominated  several times „stage designer of the year“ by Theater heute. In 2014 he caused a sensation with „MEAT“, his celebrated first collaboration with Julian Wolf Eicke and Jens Lassak at Schaubühne Berlin.
His latest production „Cellar Door“ will take place non stop over 504 hours and can also be seen on the internet. The internet audience will interact with the performers and be able to influence the course of events of „Cellar Door“. Individual performers can be commanded by online users like computer game characters and be guided through the installation. The hyper realistic stage cosmos is accessible for the audience every day form 17:00:
You may enter at 17:00 and/or 21:00. Your ticket entitles you to visit „Cellar Door“ for up to four hours.