Deutsches SchauSpielHaus Hamburg Opens the Theatertreffen
Tonight, 2nd May, the 62nd edition of Theatertreffen will open at Haus der Berliner Festspiele with “Bernarda Albas Haus”, a production of Deutsches SchauSpielHaus Hamburg. In her staging, director Katie Mitchell and her outstanding cast reveal the brutality of patriarchal structures which have a lasting impact on the lives of women, driving them into a spiral of violence and pain. Together with Matthias Pees, Director of Berliner Festspiele, and festival director Nora Hertlein-Hull, the Minister of State for Culture and the Media, Claudia Roth, will welcome the audience.
Until Sunday, 18 May, the festival, which is funded by the GermanFederal Cultural Foundation, will present 21 performances of the ten most remarkable productions at Haus der Berliner Festspiele, at Deutsches Theater, Maxim Gorki Theater and Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz. Furthermore, the performative installation “[EOL]. End of Life” will be presented at Gropius Bau over a period of eight days. Many performances are currently sold out.
Featuring seven world premiere-productions – “Die Gewehre der Frau Carrar / Würgendes Blei”, “Die Maschine oder: Über allen Gipfeln ist Ruh”, “Double Serpent”, “[EOL]. End of Life”, “ja nichts ist ok”, “Kontakthof – Echoes of ’78”, “Unser Deutschlandmärchen” and the German-language premiere of “Bernarda Albas Haus” – the selection of ten productions by the festival’s jury of critics is remarkably contemporary. Beside Theater Magdeburg, who will be travelling to Berlin with their production “Blutbuch”, directors Jan Friedrich, Hakan Savaş Mican, Meryl Tankard, Luise Voigt and Anita Vulesica as well as the Vienna collective DARUM (Victoria Halper & Kai Krösche) will be making their Theatertreffen-debut. Hessisches Staatstheater Wiesbaden returns to the festival after 60 years with “Double Serpent”, directed by Ersan Mondtag. With her opera performance “SANCTA”, Florentina Holzinger presents her third work at Theatertreffen.
The performances of the selected productions will be framed by Audience Talks: After short impulse key notes by alumni of the International Forum including Lavinia Frey, Tarun Kade and Hajo Kurzenberger, the audience is invited to talk about social references as well as decisions regarding content and aesthetics with members of the production.
Framing Programme
“Forum Theatertreffen 1965 – 2025”, curated jointly by Aljoscha Begerich, Sima Djabar Zadegan and Nora Hertlein-Hull, honours the 60th anniversary of the International Forum, focussing on the varied creative work of 53 alumni from 60 years. The festival’s global platform for emerging theatre makers was founded in 1965 as “Begegnung junger Bühnenangehöriger (Encounter of young theatre workers)”. In co-operation with the Goethe-Institut, the forum achieved an international dimension in 1980, and it has brought together a total of 2.476 artists from 90 countries to date.
In seven performative contributions, the international artists Wang Chong, Kieron Jina, Carolina Mendonça, Nofar Sela, Laila Soliman, Sebastián Squella and Tea Tupajić will present their work. In readings, authors including Emre Akal, Anastasiia Kosodii, Kay Matter and Olivia Wenzel will feature contemporary drama and engage in discussion with the audience. Furthermore, two discursive events will reflect the decreasing economic and political leeway of the theatre with Lisa Jopt, Kristóf Kelemen, Barrie Kosky, Tanja Krone, Julia Wissert and many others.
The framing programme will be opened on 3 May at Haus der Berliner Festspiele with speeches by Hermann Beil and Meloe Gennai, the live event “Zoom Out: A Surreal Snapshot of the World” by director Amitesh Grover and the audio-photo album “Фотографії вулиці Січових Стрільців” by Dima Levytskyi. The programme will end on 17 May with another prospect: In the event titled “The Forum’s Forum”, short performances by the 33 participants of the current year will introduce their ways of thinking and working.
The main funders of the accompanying programme “Forum Theatertreffen 1965-2025” are the FederalAgency for Civic Education/bpb and Heinzund Heide Dürr Stiftung. Our special thanks go to the Goethe-Institut for their long-standing partnership with the International Forum.
Award Ceremonies
Three award ceremonies will be held at Haus der Berliner Festspiele, open to the public and free of charge: On 4 May, the Theatre-Award-Berlin of Stiftung Preußische Seehandlung, which comes with a sum of 20,000 Euros, will be awarded to director Christopher Rüping. Director Anita Vulesica will receive the 3sat-Award (10,000 Euros) for her production “Die Maschine oder: Über allen Gipfeln ist Ruh” on May 6. The Alfred-Kerr-Acting-Award (5,000 Euros) will acknowledge the outstanding performance by a young actor in one of the productions invited to Theatertreffen on 18 May. This year’s juror for the award is Bettina Stucky.
Theatertreffen-Blog
Starting now, the editorial team of the Theatertreffen-Blog, under conceptual and editorial guidance of Grete Götze and Tamara Marzsalkowski, will provide critical coverage of the festival. This year, the team can be found on the forecourt of Haus der Berliner Festspiele.
Funded by StiftungPressehaus NRZ.
Programmes accessible via Berliner Festspiele’s Media Library
The welcoming addresses of today’s festival opening will be accessible in BerlinerFestspiele’s Media Library from 3 May. The panel “What Now?” will be available from 13 May, and the discussion “Narrowing Spaces” from 19 May.
On 18 May, there will be live streams from the traditional concluding jury discussion and the audience talk on “[EOL]. End of Life”.
The four “StarkeStücke”, especially produced television recordings by Theatertreffen’s long-standing media partner 3sat, will be accessible from both the 3sat-Mediathek and the Media Library of Berliner Festspiele for a year from 3 May.
BURNING ISSUES: For its seventh and final edition, the conference format has adopted the title of “BURNINGISSUES meets Orchestra | Performing Arts & Classical Music” to connect with protagonists from the fields of music and orchestras. They invite culture workers to an exchange of ideas on 10 May at Wilhelmshallen (rehearsal centre of DSO) and on 11 May at Haus der Berliner Festspiele. Lisa Jopt, co-founder of BURNING ISSUES and president of the Association of German Stage Employees (GDBA) is an alumna of the 2014 International Forum and will take part in the panel discussion “What Now? Strategies and Alliances Against the Great Cultural Depression”.
Events With Audio Description: In co-operation with Förderband e.V. Kulturinitiative Berlin, the performances of “Bernarda Albas Haus” (3 May at 19:30) and “Kontakthof – Echoes of ‘78” (12 May at 19:30) at Haus der Berliner Festspiele and “Unser Deutschlandmärchen” (14 May at 20:00) at Maxim Gorki Theater will offer a live audio description. Furthermore, the television recording of “Unser Deutschlandmärchen” as part of “Starke Stücke” on 17 May will be broadcast with an audio description.
Radio Coverage Live From the Festspielhaus: DeutschlandfunkKultur’s live programme “Fazit” will be visiting Haus der Berliner Festspiele from 23:00 to 0:00 on 2 May. The channel radio3 of rbb will be reporting live from the festival from 18:00 to 20:00 on 9 May. Both programmes will feature artists and makers of the 62nd festival editions as their guests.
Around 175 journalists from the German-language region – Germany, Austria, Switzerland – as well as many other countries including Bulgaria, China, Finland, Great Britain, Norway, Poland, Russia, Sweden and the US will cover the industry meeting for their media.
Theatertreffen is funded by the GermanFederal Cultural Foundation. Funded by theState Minister for Culture and the Media.
The festival would like to thank all of its co-operation partners and supporters as well as all participants for their co-operation.