<a href="${link:{uuid:{d31fce8d-f964-4520-a8ce-a2a51c34e489},repository:{website},path:{/bfs-de/theatertreffen/das-festival/ueber-die-10-inszenierungen}}}">Ten remarkable productions</a> from the last season were selected by a <a href="${link:{uuid:{48cb521b-4064-44ff-8f92-f1c6581d87af},repository:{website},path:{/bfs-de/theatertreffen/das-festival/ueber-die-10-inszenierungen/jurys/jury-2024}}}">jury of critics</a> to provide a condensed insight into the German-language theatre landscape.&nbsp;They were accompanied by newly developed&nbsp;<a href="${link:{uuid:{b8aec309-bc2e-4303-96b4-efda4fdeaace},repository:{website},path:{/bfs-de/theatertreffen/programm/2024/nachtgespraeche-und-weiteres-programm}}}">Audience Talks</a>, moderated by Florian Malzacher.

Highlights Musikfest Berlin 2023

Musikfest Berlin

Musikfest Berlin 2023

Theatertreffen

43 productions were suggested and discussed for nomination for the 2024 Theatertreffen by the jury members.

The 2024 Shortlisted Productions

A European Eucharist by Werner Schwab In a version by Rieke S&uuml;&szlig;kow and Klaus MissbachDirector: Rieke S&uuml;&szlig;kow Premiere: 6.10.2023 Staatstheater N&uuml;rnberg <a href="https://www.staatstheater-nuernberg.de/spielplan-23-24/uebergewicht-unwichtig-unform/01-02-2024/1930">staatstheater-nuernberg.de</a><h4>Statement of the Jury</h4>Director Rieke S&uuml;&szlig;kow does not brush Werner Schwab’s “faeces drama” from 1991 the wrong way, on the contrary: She has studied it closely and stages it with delightful perfection in all its adolescent, sniggering obscenity. The inn where a group of miserable and violent regulars envy (and eat) a couple of beautiful newcomers is located inside a mouth that smacks and slurps most disgustingly. The characters wear half-inflated sex dolls and are targets in a fairground shooting gallery or a gaming machine. Their movements appear mechanical and each individual one is backed by a noise. Only after they have committed violence against the beautiful rich people do they become able to liberate themselves. S&uuml;&szlig;kow applies a strict concept and yet the details of its implementation remain surprising throughout. So we keep watching eagerly and begin to side with individual characters – although the only character that Schwab is interested in is language itself.<a href="https://mediathek.berlinerfestspiele.de/en/theatertreffen/2024/statement-uebergewicht-unwichtig-unform">To juror Martin Thomas Pesl’s video statement in the Berliner Festspiele Media Library (in German)</a>

&Uuml;BERGEWICHT, unwichtig: UNFORM

Dramatic poem in five acts By Gotthold Ephraim LessingDirector and set designer: Ulrich Rasche Premiere: 28.7.2023 Salzburger Festspiele <a href="https://www.salzburgerfestspiele.at/en/p/nathan-der-weise-2023" target="_blank" title="Zur Website der Salzburger Festspiele">salzburgerfestspiele.at</a><h4>Statement of the Jury</h4>The radiance of enlightenment in Ulrich Rasche’s production of Gotthold Ephraim Lessing’s “Nathan der Weise” (Nathan the Wise) shines and blazes so brightly that it is hard to say whether it will lead humankind into a better future or simply blind them. Short, interspersed external texts by Johann Gottlieb Fichte and Voltaire suggest the latter. They reveal the deluded side of enlightenment and the fact that there were unbridled anti-Semites among its thinkers. And Lessing took a rather pessimistic kind of stance against these anti-Semites. It is exactly this pessimism that pervades Rasche’s staging and Valery Tscheplanowa’s equally sharp-thinking and moving portrayal of Nathan. Together with light artist Alon Cohen, Rasche creates boundaries made of light. These walls of light enable beautiful entrances, but they also repeatedly separate the characters, underlining Rasche’s idea of the limits of enlightenment – an idea already illustrated by Lessing’s awkward happy ending which excludes Nathan, of all people, from the family.<a href="https://mediathek.berlinerfestspiele.de/de/theatertreffen/2024/statement-nathan-der-weise">To juror Valeria Heintges’ video statement in the Berliner Festspiele Media Library (in German)</a>

Nathan der Weise (Nathan the Wise)

Based on “The Lord of the Rings”™ by J.R.R. Tolkien An accessible installation by Theater HORA, Das Helmi Puppentheater and Schauspielhaus Z&uuml;richDirectors: Nicolas Stemann, Stephan Stock, Florian Loycke &amp; Der Cora Frost&nbsp; World premiere: 22.4.2023 Schauspielhaus Z&uuml;rich <a href="https://www.schauspielhaus.ch/en/kalender/23961/riesenhaft-in-mittelerde" target="_blank" title="Zur Website des Schauspielhaus Z&uuml;rich">schauspielhaus.ch</a><h4>Statement of the Jury</h4>A 1250-page novel on stage – and how! The production’s four directors constructed a lovingly equipped walk-in fantasy world in Schauspielhaus Z&uuml;rich’s Schiffbau-Halle. At first, the audience is allowed to enter and explore; then Frodo’s adventures in Middle Earth unfold with plenty of commotion, music, plastic foam, films and gags. It is a spectacle, a huge merriment, an analysis of a monster film that has thousands of fans in spite of its racist and misogynist undertones. All of this is incorporated, but only in passing. All of the cast perform on an equitable footing, the actors from Schauspielhaus Z&uuml;rich, the HORA-players, the puppets of Das Helmi, Der Cora Frost. And the co-artistic director accompanies them all on the piano. That’s class, that’s confidence; this is a celebration of the theatre and its wealth of devices, of methods, of faces, of approaches. And even its shortcomings, which are revealed but not exposed. An immersive spectacle where both Tolkien-experts and high culture-nerds will get their money’s worth and vanquish evil together.<a href="https://mediathek.berlinerfestspiele.de/en/theatertreffen/2024/statement-riesenhaft-in-mittelerde">To juror Valeria Heintges’ video statement in the Berliner Festspiele Media Library (in German)</a>

Riesenhaft in Mittelerde™

<h3>&nbsp;ANTHROPOLIS II</h3>By Roland SchimmelpfennigDirector: Karin Beier World premiere: 29.9.2023 Deutsches SchauSpielHaus Hamburg <a href="https://schauspielhaus.de/stuecke/laios" target="_blank" title="Zur Website des Deutschen SchauSpielHauses Hamburg">schauspielhaus.de</a><h4>Statement of the Jury</h4>Following Pentheus – and preceding Oedipus – Laios is the rightful heir to the Theban throne. In the second part of the five-part series “ANTHROPOLIS” Roland Schimmelpfennig has invented a personal biography for this supporting character from the ancient world. He allows space for myths and possibilities as well as for kebab shops and rattling motor scooters. After all, those handed down stories of the ancient Greeks, this “sick shit”, is nothing but conjecture. Gods are at play here, as well as flying cats and banished princes, some of them with pierced feet. Karin Beier needs only few devices to stage this monologue of multiple perspectives with all its versions, variations and maybes. And at the centre of it all, she firmly places the phenomenal Lina Beckmann who fills the black worlds of the stage with roaming assurance. With superb presence of mind, physical suppleness and an overwhelming joy of acting, she invokes a grand, far-away world while always staying in touch with the audience. From the light-heartedness of a teenager via the human abysses of a Butoh-dancer and a politician’s calculations to the calamitous cough of a seer, Beckmann fascinates in alternating characters. But her principal role is that of a highly concentrated, captivating narrator.<a href="https://mediathek.berlinerfestspiele.de/en/theatertreffen/2024/statement-laios">To juror Katrin Ullmann’s video statement in the Berliner Festspiele Media Library (in German)</a>

Laios

<h3>Eine Vorstellung &uuml;ber Finsternis, Sch&ouml;nheit und Vergebung, basierend auf einer wahren Begebenheit.</h3>Concept: Wunderbaum Director: Walter Bart Text: Walter Bart, Hannah Baumann, Pina Bergemann, Nikita Buldyrski, Henrike Commichau, Linde Dercon, Leon Pfannenm&uuml;ller, Anna K. Seidel World premiere: 27.10.2023 Theaterhaus Jena A co-production with Wunderbaum. <a href="https://www.theaterhaus-jena.de/die-hundekotattacke.html">theaterhaus-jena.de</a><h4>Statement of the Jury</h4>Right at the outset, the production quotes Robert F. Kennedy: “A life without criticism is not worth living”. And yes, this show does address the faeces-attack that occurred at Staatsoper Hannover in February 2023 – and thereby the debate about art criticism. But it is also a show that has avowedly chosen a sensational title to finally entice the nationwide press to travel to the Thuringian provinces – an aim that it has fully accomplished. It is a show about power structures in the theatre and the genius cult, about the “both attractive and disgusting words dog faeces”. And above all, it is a show that challenges these issues and thus the art (and theatre) scene. It plays on clichés, facts and fiction, on the vanity of actors, the sovereignty of critics and the presumably personal. Created with self-irony, intelligence, pseudo-documentation and within the both emotional and democratic roller-coaster processes of a collective. In short: a charming and captivating show, and of course it features a dachshund, a choreographer and a critic.<a href="https://mediathek.berlinerfestspiele.de/en/theatertreffen/2024/statement-die-hundekot-attacke">To juror Katrin Ullmann’s video statement in the Berliner Festspiele Media Library (in German)</a>

Die Hundekot-Attacke

Tragicomedy by Anton Chekhov German translation by Ulrike Zemme Including “DAD MEN TALKING”: A series of conversations with changing guests &amp; Carl Hegemann as well as a monologue by Katja BrunnerDirector: Jette Steckel Premiere: 3.6.2023 M&uuml;nchner Kammerspiele <a href="https://www.muenchner-kammerspiele.de/en/programm/13724-die-vaterlosen" target="_blank" title="Zur Website der M&uuml;nchner Kammerspiele">muenchner-kammerspiele.de</a><h4>Statement of the Jury</h4>There is no fourth wall in the beginning. The Kammerspiele-cast around Wiebke Puls as Anna Petrovna, impoverished widow of a general, casually chat into the stalls, heave beer crates across the ramp and try to get into the party spirit. But there is no buzz, no matter how much the “fatherless” try. This is Anton Chekhov’s first play, written when he was still at school in the Russian provinces, while his bankrupt father had fled to Moscow to avoid his creditors. Jette Steckel stages it as a dance on the volcano’s edge. One after the other, strong women succumb to Joachim Meyerhoff’s toxic school teacher Platonov, throwing themselves at him in a craving for perdition and defiantly declaring him to be their “utopia”. One, at any rate, successfully sues him in a text insert by Katja Brunner – and Platonov promptly declares himself the victim. And then there are the “DAD MEN TALKING”, older gentlemen (and ladies) whom dramaturg Carl Hegemann interviews on the generational experience of fatherlessness in talk show parentheses, until Platonov knocks the stuffing out of them. A celebration of acting, full of collective repressions and projections!<a href="https://mediathek.berlinerfestspiele.de/en/theatertreffen/2024/statement-die-vaterlosen">To juror Martin Thomas Pesl's video statement in the Berliner Festspiele Media Library (in German)</a>

Die Vaterlosen (The Fatherless)

Past Events

Between 21 January 2023 and 17 January 2024, 690&nbsp;productions from 82&nbsp;cities were viewed either in person or online. 1.105&nbsp;votes were submitted and a total of 43&nbsp;productions were suggested and discussed for nomination for the 2024&nbsp;Theatertreffen.&nbsp;

By Yael Ronen &amp; Shlomi ShabanDirector: Yael Ronen Songwriting and composition: Shlomi Shaban World premiere: 9.12.2023 Schaub&uuml;hne am Lehniner Platz Co-production with Théâtre de Liège – with the support of Wallonia-Brussels International. Funded by the European Theatre Network PROSPERO – Extended Theatre. <a href="https://www.schaubuehne.de/en/produktionen/bucket-list.html?m=442" target="_blank" title="Zur Website des Maxim Gorki Theaters">schaubuehne.de</a><h4>Statement of the Jury</h4>Sometimes the theatre manages to be contemporary in a way that is the opposite of “up-to-date”. In these instances, something seems to lie behind what we see on stage, like a second skin. “Bucket List” is such a show. Because it is precisely not what many had expected – a concrete analysis of the horrors of 7 October 2023. Instead: There is trust in what is your own, in art, music and the original story. But how can this story be told without dealing with the Here and Now? A man wants his memories to be deleted because he is suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. But some shreds remain, some eerie scraps of yesterday’s memories, like those white pieces of clothing that keep falling from the theatre’s rafters. Among the disconsolate yearning of these images, Yael Ronen, Shlomi Shaban and their cast have created grand musical theatre, effortlessly changing between Broadwayesque glamour and mellifluous singer-songwriter sounds. As masterfully as ever – and yet nothing seems like it was before.<a href="https://mediathek.berlinerfestspiele.de/en/theatertreffen/2024/statement-bucket-list" rel="external" target="_new">To juror Janis El-Bira’s video statement in the Berliner Festspiele Media Library (in German)</a>

Bucket List

By Falk RichterDirector: Falk Richter German-language premiere: 19.11.2023 Schaub&uuml;hne am Lehniner Platz <a href="https://www.schaubuehne.de/en/produktionen/the-silence.html?m=442" target="_blank" title="Zur Website des Maxim Gorki Theaters">schaubuehne.de</a><h4>Statement of the Jury</h4>An aged father who still has nightmares about the war, a mother who inspects her children’s diaries, parents who show no pity when their son falls victim to a homophobic attack: In his auto-fictional play “The Silence”, author and director Falk Richter sets out to find the reasons behind the silence that shaped his childhood and adolescence in the Nordheide, a region south of Hamburg. He confronts his mother in documentary film footage where she describes her life as a story of perseverance, of “resilience”; he invents wickedly funny dialogues with his old school-friend and with a therapist. On a stage designed to resemble a front garden in Buchholz, he is represented by actor Dimitrij Schaad who furiously empathizes with the artist – and yet he has his own views of this kind of self-exploration. In “The Silence”, Falk Richter has not only created a captivating and reflected analysis of how deeply the traces of fascism and the experience of war have penetrated into the mentality of people in the Federal Republic of Germany. He also allows the audience to share the struggles and shifts of perspective that may perhaps allow a new beginning.<a href="https://mediathek.berlinerfestspiele.de/en/theatertreffen/2024/statement-the-silence">To juror Eva Behrendt’s video statement in the Berliner Festspiele Media Library (in German)</a>

The Silence

By Gisèle VienneConcept, choreography, direction, scenography: Gisèle Vienne Creation and performance in co-operation with: Adèle Haenel, Theo Livesey, Katia Petrowick World premiere: 16.8.2023 (Ruhrtriennale) A production of DACM / Company Gisèle Vienne in co-production with Ruhrtriennale, Théâtre National de Bretagne – Centre Européen Théâtral et Chorégraphique, MC93 – Maison de la Culture de Seine-Saint-Denis Bobigny, MC2 : Grenoble – Scène nationale, Théâtre national de Chaillot, Maillon – Théâtre de Strasbourg – Scéne européenne, Tandem – Scène nationale de Douai, Points Communs – Nouvelle Scène nationale de Cergy Pontoise, CN D Centre national de la danse, Comédie de Genève, Le Volcan – Scène nationale du Havre, Centre Culturel André Malraux – Scène nationale de Vandoeuvre lès Nancy, NTGent, Printemps des Comédiens – Cité du Théâtre Domaine d’O Montpellier, Festival d’Automne à Paris, Comédie de Clermont, International Summer Festival Kampnagel – Hamburg, Triennale – Milan, Tanzquartier Wien, La Filature, Scéne nationale de Mulhouse. <a href="https://2023.ruhrtriennale.de/en/programme/extra-life/103" target="_blank" title="Zur Webseite des Schauspielhauses Bochum">ruhrtriennale.de</a><h4>Statement of the Jury</h4>A bleak no man’s land beyond the outskirts of the city. Clara and Felix are stranded here after a whole night of dancing. The siblings had grown apart but now, for the first time, they are able to talk openly about what Uncle Charly did to them. This much is certain in Gisèle Vienne’s “Extra Life”. Everything else fans out in associative splinters in Yves Godin’s breathtaking lighting design. Over and over, Godin uses individual spotlights and colourful laser beams to create new spaces that never become concrete locations. They mark landscapes of the soul through which Adèle Haenel, Theo Livesey and Katia Petrowick move in slow motion. Thus, Gisèle Vienne and the performers consistently dissolve time as we know it. It does not pass, but rather opens up in many different, diverse directions. Present and past, reality, dreams and nightmares become one. The persistent trauma of the abused children expresses itself in equally poetic and painful images and becomes tangible through art.<a href="https://mediathek.berlinerfestspiele.de/en/theatertreffen/2024/statement-extra-life">To juror Sascha Westphal’s video statement in the Berliner Festspiele Media Library (in German)</a>

Extra Life

By William Shakespeare German translation by Angela Schanelec and J&uuml;rgen Gosch Director: Johan Simons Text version: Koen Tachelet Premiere: 12.5.2023 Schauspielhaus Bochum <a href="https://www.schauspielhausbochum.de/en/stuecke/8009/macbeth" target="_blank" title="Zur Webseite des Schauspielhauses Bochum">schauspielhausbochum.de</a><h4>Statement of the Jury</h4>It is basically an obvious idea, and now director Johan Simons has taken a spirited hold of it. He construes William Shakespeare’s “Macbeth” as the prototype of the Theatre of the Absurd. Which is exactly what this horror play with all its improbabilities and its penchant for the supernatural and the cruelly grotesque has always been. Conceived as a farce, the tragedy shines in new splendour, bestowed not least by Marina Galic, Jens Harzer and Stefan Hunstein. They play all the roles and use the rapid transitions from one character to the next as opportunities for abstruse gags. As sad clowns, they don Shakespeare’s characters like costumes while constantly intuiting the senselessness of it all. This lends their characters a surprising and, all their savagery notwithstanding, touching vulnerability. “Fair is foul and foul is fair”, is the witches’ announcement at the beginning of the play. Simons and his cast make this reversal of values work. The tragic is comical, the comical is tragic.<a href="https://mediathek.berlinerfestspiele.de/en/theatertreffen/2024/statement-macbeth">To juror Sascha Westphal’s video statement in the Berliner Festspiele Media Library (in German)</a>

Macbeth

Die 10 Inszenierungen 2024

The 10 Productions

The 10 Productions 2024

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Every year, the Theatertreffen brings the 10 most remarkable productions from German-speaking countries and works by up-and-coming artists from around the world to Berlin.

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The 2025 Open Call

This Open Call for the International Forum is addressed at artists at the beginning of their artistic practice who have already gathered some initial professional experience. They may be from all sectors of the performing arts, especially from the fields of directing, acting, set and costume design, dramaturgy, text production, music, video, performance, media, choreography, production management and theatre education.Around 35 artists from around the world will be invited to come to Berlin, to watch theatre together, to talk, to (re-)consider, to experiment and to make connections. The fellows will have the opportunity to attend the festival, to take part in intensive workshops with international artists, to reflect together the productions invited to Theatertreffen and theatre in general and to exchange ideas.Deadline for applications: 5 December 2024 (23:59, CET)

International Forum

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The Programme Is Online

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On 22 January, the Theatertreffen’s jury of critics announced their selection of the 10 most remarkable productions for the 2025 Theatertreffen at a press conference. Our congratulations go to the nominated production teams and all participants!

The 10 Most Remarkable Productions 2025

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A new edition of “BURNING ISSUES x Theatertreffen” is in planning under the title “PERFORMING ARTS &amp; SOLIDARITY”, in co-operation with Szenografie-Bund as well as with Deutsches Theater Berlin and Sophiensaele. The Theatertreffen-programme, which will feature a range of discursive formats and keynotes, is being developed by Nora Hertlein-Hull together with dramaturgs Aljoscha Begrich and Sima Djabar Zadegan with reference to the ten selected productions.&nbsp; Nele Hertling will receive the Theatre Prize Berlin of Stiftung Preu&szlig;ische Seehandlung for her services to the theatre. As Theatertreffen’s long-standing media partner, 3sat will present especially produced TV-recordings of productions invited to the festival in its programme. This year’s “Starke St&uuml;cke” are: “Bucket List” (Schaub&uuml;hne am Lehniner Platz), “Laios. ANTHROPOLIS II” (Deutsches SchauSpielHaus Hamburg) and “Macbeth” (Schauspielhaus Bochum).&nbsp; The programme schedule of the 2024 Theatertreffen will be published on 5&nbsp;April; ticket sales begin on 19&nbsp;April.&nbsp;

Preparations Are Underway for the 2024 Edition of the Festival

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The Theatertreffen invites 30 exciting artists from all parts of the world to attend and reflect the festival and to exchange ideas and experiences across artistic and national boundaries. We are very much looking forward to welcoming all participants and thank everyone for their applications! More than 700 artists from 75 countries responded to the Open Call published in the autumn of 2023.

The 2024 International Forum Participants

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“Reviews are the worst thing about this job,” comments director Jette Steckel, who was invited to the 2023 Theatertreffen with “Die Vaterlosen”, in a guest article written for the Theatertreffen-Blog. Here young art journalists took a critical look at the 10 productions and themes all around the Theatertreffen. Reviews, essays and interviews were published continuously throughout the festival. You can read, for example, about “Lord of the Rings” fan Leonard Haverkamp’s experience of the accessible installation “Riesenhaft in Mittelerde”™ or Marta Ivkić’s review of “Bucket List”. And you can also learn more about the creative interactions of the 29 participants in the International Forum in Elliot Douglas’s article “The power of collaborative theatre”.

Perspectives on Theatertreffen

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Theatertreffen 2025: Impressionen

Theatertreffen 2025: Impressions

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Impressions

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Each year, the 10 most remarkable productions are selected by a jury of critics from up to 600&nbsp;shows within the German-language region and the viewing period.

The 10 Productions

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On the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the International Forum, a special framing programme will exclusively present alumni of the International Forum.

Forum Theatertreffen 1965–2025

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The International Forum is an initial impetus for collaboration, the search for diverse local perspectives on global issues, and a free space for developing artistic ideas together.

International Forum

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Aspiring arts journalists with a keen interest in the theatre&nbsp;will attend and critically reflect the Theatertreffen with the support of experienced mentors.

Theatertreffen-Blog

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Short impulse key notes by alumni of the International Forum will be followed by conversations between participants from the respective production and the audience about decisions regarding content and aesthetics.

Audience Talks

At a Glance

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by Martin Thomas Pesl

In his essay on the theatre year 2024, Theatertreffen-juror Martin Thomas Pesl looks to the past and to the future – and finds legacy issues, multiple identities, AI and even a spark of hope.

Black is the New Black

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The upcoming 2025 Theatertreffen is inspiring and exciting. This year’s festival promises new stories, new voices and new perspectives. We have the opportunity to experience seven premieres and the works of just as many directors showcasing their productions at the Theatertreffen for the first time, such as works from the Theater Magdeburg and the Vienna-based production and performance venue brut Wien. For us as theatre-goers, this is as an excellent opportunity to embrace new narratives and engage in new forms of story-telling and presentation which we have never, or only rarely, experienced in theatre.

Claudia Roth, Minister of State for Culture and the Media

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By Martin Thomas Pesl

Black is the New Black

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A few years ago, the director Katie Mitchell’s daughter gave her a seemingly simple task: not to create any more theatre productions that ended with women killing themselves. Mitchell’s production of “Bernada Albas Haus” opens the 2025 Theatertreffen. In staging this new version of the classic by Alice Birch, Mitchell has nevertheless made the artistic decision that the female characters should decide to die at the end of the production. In the director’s vision, it is impossible for people at present to envisage themselves and their future escaping a spiral of increasing violence.

Katarzyna Wielga-Skolimowska and Kirsten Ha&szlig;, German Federal Cultural Foundation

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Performing Exiles is an international and interdisciplinary festival produced by the Berliner Festspiele, that seeks to make diasporic lives in the city of Berlin visible and explore the contemporary meaning of exile. The programme has already been published and tickets are available now.

Performing Exiles

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60 ensembles from 13&nbsp;federal states have submitted their productions for the 46th&nbsp;Theatertreffen der Jugend 2025. The programme is now online and tickets are available.

Theatertreffen der Jugend

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Since the 1950s Yoko Ono has been ahead of her time, leaving her mark on visual arts, music and activism. To honour her groundbreaking work, Gropius Bau presents a comprehensive solo exhibition.

YOKO ONO: MUSIC OF THE MIND

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Musikfest Berlin 2025 brings together guest performances by the world’s best symphony orchestras and choirs from the Netherlands, France, Belgium and Italy, which are rarely heard in Berlin. The full programme is online and tickets are available now.

Musikfest Berlin

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Each year, the Theatertreffen brings the 10 most remarkable productions from the German-language region as well as the works of emerging artists to Berlin.