Winner of the 2025 Ubu Prize for Best Production, A Place of Safety is the story of an encounter between a theatre company and a group of people who have decided to devote part of their lives to sea rescue, but it is also an intimate exploration of what Europe would like to be, what it is not, and what it could become.

The Kepler-452 theatre company boards a search-and-rescue vessel in the central Mediterranean, the Sea-Watch 5. They are not quite sure what they are looking for; they only know that they have been hearing for a long time about what is happening just a few kilometres off the Italian coast, and perhaps the time has come to go and see for themselves what is happening along the world’s deadliest migration route. During this mission, they rescue 156 people, who will be disembarked at a place of safety, a safe port in Italy.
This journey gives rise to a series of thoughts, questions and concerns, as well as encounters with rescuers from various NGOs operating in the Mediterranean – in addition to Sea-Watch itself, there are also crew members from Life Support, Emergency’s search and rescue vessel – some of whom will recount on stage what they have witnessed happening just a few kilometres off the Italian coast.
The testimonies gathered, relating to the last ten years of search and rescue in the Mediterranean Sea, become the stages of a mission within the play: from the fears before setting off to the motivations driving people to embark, what happens as they approach the area of operations, the rescue itself, and finally the return journey. Amidst the characters’ narratives, a question arises in the directors’ minds: “How should this story be told?”.