NICOLETA ESINENCU (b. 1978, Chișinău) is an author and director. Her texts and theater projects explore social realities in the Republic of Moldova and the contradictions of the post-Soviet era. In doing so, she also takes a critical look at the pan-European past and present. She experienced the transition from the Soviet-dominated era to independence as a teenager. How language became a political issue and how belonging or exclusion were increasingly linked to the Russian, Romanian, or Ukrainian languages are among the experiences she incorporates into her plays. After receiving a fellowship at the Akademie Schloss Solitude, she gained international recognition with “FUCK YOU, Eu.ro.Pa!” (2005). For this piece, she won the Romanian dramAcum Theater Award, and was banned from performing in the Republic of Moldova. This was followed by numerous plays, which she staged and performed internationally in collaboration with the artist collective teatru-spălătorie, which she co-founded—including: “Dear Moldova, can we kiss just a little bit?” (2013, with Jessica Glause), “Requiem for Europe” (2019), “Abolition of the Family” (2019), “Symphony of Progress” (2022), and “Dirty Laundry. The TrashOpera” (2025). Esinencu has been a guest at the Leipzig Book Fair and the Berlin International Literature Festival on several occasions. Her works have been translated into German, English, French, Bulgarian, and Polish. In 2019, Nicoleta Esinencu was a guest of the DAAD’s Berlin Artists-in-Residence Program. In 2022, Nicoleta Esinencu & teatru-spălătorie received the international Tabori Prize. During the Theater der Welt festival in Chemnitz, they were awarded the Prize of the International Theater Institute in 2026.

TEATRU-SPĂLĂTORIE was founded in 2010 as an independent initiative. It arose from the need to create an alternative art space in Chișinău where artists could engage with, act upon, and respond to political and social events in the Republic of Moldova. Their performances are based on research and documentary material and examine the power structure of Europe from an Eastern European perspective. teatru-spălătorie’s venue in Chișinău had to close in 2017 due to a lack of financial resources. Since then, teatru-spălătorie has continued its work without its own stage, partly in exile and in collaboration with various international partner venues such as the HAU Hebbel am Ufer in Berlin. The core of the teatru-spălătorie collective consists of dramaturg Nora Dorogan, writer Nicoleta Esinencu, actress Doriana Talmazan, sound artist Kira Semionov, and filmmaker and queer performance artist artiom zavadovsky. Their most recent production, “Memory Distortion. MIXTAPE,” was created in Chișinău in 2025.