One guest, two tables, 110 questions. The regular brut series GUESTS – A Concentrated Talk Show features Pia Hierzegger of Theater im Bahnhof as a genial but merciless interviewer probing different Vienna personalities one after the other in intimate one-on-one conversations. The questions, drawn at random, may range from the current political situation to intimate personal issues. Their purpose is not to explain, expose or denounce. Instead, the audience should be given insights into the guests’ worlds and the country’s mentality. And yet, sometimes there might be a point where unpleasant follow-up questions are in order… Thus unfolds a vivid selection of greatly varying insights, views and perspectives during each show.

Guests:

• Claudia Unterweger, presenter and journalist, FM4
• Clemens J. Setz, writer and translator, author of the novel Frequenzen.
• Arno Leimlehner, air traffic controller

As a presenter and journalist, Claudia Unterweger has been familiar to ORF television and radio audiences for years.  Nominated twice for the ROMY television award, she also provides information as an anchor on Radio FM4 about current events. She also teaches at the Institute for Journalism and Media Management at the Vienna University of Applied Sciences.

Clemens J. Setz was born in 1982 in Graz, where he studied mathematics and German studies. Now he lives in Graz as a translator and freelance writer. He publishes poems, plays and essays, but above all narratives and novels, for which he has been awarded numerous prizes, u. a. with the Prize of the Leipzig Book Fair 2011 for the storycollection Die Liebe zur Zeit des Mahlstädter Kindes  and the Wilhelm Raabe Literature Prize 2015 for his novel Die Stunde zwischen Frau und Gitarre. Most recently, he was awarded the Berlin Literature Prize in 2019. His second novel Die Frequenz was shortlisted for the German Book Prize 2009 and was awarded the Bremen Literature Prize 2010.

Arno Leimlehner kommt aus dem Raum Mödling und ist seit 2009 aktiver Fluglotse im 3. Bezirk, wo er mit seinen Kolleg*innen für die Sicherheit des österreichischen Luftraumes zuständig ist (Bezirkskontrollstelle oder Überflugskontrolle). Neben seinem Beruf als Fluglotse ist er Trainer am Simulator und On-Job während der Ausbildung neuer Trainees. Zusätzlich ist er Verfahrensexperte für den Überflugsbereich und im Verband der österreichischen Fluglotsen (AATCA) im Vorstand tätig. In seiner Freizeit bewegt er sich sehr gerne, sei es Tennis, Padeltennis, Squash, Badminton, wandern, segeln – aber am wichtigsten ist ihm die Zeit mit Familie und Freunden.

Graz-based Theater im Bahnhof makes contemporary theatre for the people and deals with the Austrian identity between tradition and pop culture. Austria’s largest professional but independent theatre company has regularly been featured in brut’s programming.