Bremgarten cellar theater

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The basement theater operates its venue on the second floor of the Schellenhaus.

The Bremgarten cellar theater is a small theater founded in 1967 in Bremgarten in the canton of Aargau . In addition to the guest performance program, the puppet theater and the youth theater , it develops its own production every year. Operated is the theater of some 80 volunteers in volunteer work . The cellar theater is financially supported by private patrons, the city of Bremgarten, the Aargauer Kuratorium, the Swisslos Fund of the Canton of Aargau and the Migros Culture Percentage .

history

founding

Bremgarten, a small town on the Reuss , experienced a cultural awakening in the mid-1960s . The local boys' team theater and the Brämestich cabaret developed into an active theater group, whose first performances found their audience in the “Postkeller” under the former post office and the Hotel Krone. Encouraged by the success of the first performance on January 28, 1967 ( Johann Nestroy's Earlier Conditions and The Dog in the Brain by Curt Goetz ), two to three self-productions followed annually. The first open-air performance was played on Schellenhausplatz as early as 1968/1969, and the production of a series of fairy tales started with The Frog King by the Brothers Grimm .

From the «Postkeller» to the «Schellenhaus»

Due to the limited space in the «Postkeller», the theater group soon started looking for a new venue. This was found in the “Schellenhaus”, also in the old town of Bremgarten, which was in need of renovation. Since then, part of this historic building has been made available to the cellar theater by the Bremgarten community. For the renovation of the "Schellenhaus", the theater group had to contribute 150,000 francs in advance in the form of material sponsorship and voluntary work by the association members. The new theater was opened on September 22, 1973 with William Shakespeare's comedy Love suffers with lust . Since the name was retained, it has since been considered “possibly the world's only cellar theater on the second floor”. Since then, the basement theater has offered around 120 seats and has a professional infrastructure with a stage, lighting technology, goods lift, cloakrooms and bar.

management

The first president of the «Cellar Theater Bremgarten» association was Othmar Schaufelbühl. As a local resident, on the one hand he established the contacts for the search for a new venue and on the other hand, as an architect, he converted the “Schellenhaus” into a theater. Willy Haller became the artistic director . He left the basement theater in 1977 after differences of opinion about the direction of the theater and also founded the “ Theater am Spittel ” in Bremgarten , which lasted until 1998. Since then, the cellar theater has been managed collectively by the board . From 2001 to 2014 the historian Fridolin Kurmann was President, who was succeeded by the teacher and theater pedagogue Simon Landwehr.

Divisions

Own productions

Until the end of the 1980s, the Bremgarten cellar theater offered several self-productions per season with a few exceptions. The spectrum ranged from dramas (e.g. Endspiel by Samuel Beckett 1975/76) to comedies (e.g. The great anger of Philipp Hotz by Max Frisch 1970/71 or Back and forth by Ödön von Horváth 1993/94) up to fairy tales (e.g. Der Froschkönig 1968/69, Rumpelstilzchen 1969/70 or Frau Holle of the Brothers Grimm 1971/72, all based on the script by the actor Jörg Schneider ).

In addition to the scandalous dialect piece Sennentuntschi 1975/76, with which the Swiss writer Hansjörg Schneider became known, the open-air performances such as B. Heinrich Bullinger on the occasion of the 500th birthday of the Bremgarten reformer or in 2011/12 the elaborate production With Chrüüz and Flag in memory of the Second Villmerger War of 1712, a production together with the Villmergen theater group , the Wohlen star room and “Murikultur”. Directed by Dodó Deér , the cellar theater staged the play Fiire by the Swiss authors Guy Krneta , Simon Ledermann , Rebecca C. Schnyder and Paul Steinmann for its 50th anniversary in 2017 .

Puppet theater

In 1991 a further offer was created with the puppet theater. The first piece to be performed was the Princess Pfiffigunde, based on a story by Babette Cole . More performances followed every year, with the players taking regular courses. In addition to well-known fairy tales such as that of the Brothers Grimm (e.g. Tischlein deck dich ), more recent or contemporary stories (e.g. The Dream Eater by Michael Ende or Molly and the terrible Captain Knitterbart after Captain Knitterbart and his gang by Cornelia were presented Spark ).

«Young stage»

Even before puppet theater, productions for children and young people had a high priority. The children's and youth theater "Spatz & Co." around Jean Grädel and Lilly Friedrich his seat initially in the Bremgartner Kellertheater. The group from which “ Zamt & Zunder ” emerged in 1992 was “an important cultural and political engine for children's and youth theater in Switzerland” in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

The Bremgarten basement theater has been promoting young people in-house with its Infected theater courses since 2008. The offer is aimed at children between the ages of 8 and 12 and young people between the ages of 12 and 16 and those over the age of 16. From these groups, the “Young Stage” was formed in 2015 as the third division of the basement theater. In this context, adolescents and young adults also develop and perform their own production every year. In the media, the "Young Stage" came just a year after its creation, because local authorities her performance of Forest: Park at Erdmannlistein not approved in Bremgarter forest.

Guest performances

Since the beginning, the Bremgarten cellar theater has not only performed its own productions but also performed guest performances. The first was the Swiss cabaret artist and actor Alfred Rasser . Engagements by German-speaking artists followed, including the authors Silvio Blatter , Alex Capus and Judith Giovannelli-Blocher , the cabaret artists Frölein Da Capo , Philipp Galizia , Franz Hohler , Hanns Dieter Hüsch and Emil Steinberger or the musicians Egon Egemann , Max Lässer and Reinhard Mey .

Sponsorship

The basement theater is mainly supported by the voluntary work of the association members. It also receives grants from the public sector (e.g. from the Bremgarten community, the Aargauer Kuratorium and the Swisslos Fund of the Canton of Aargau), from sponsors (e.g. from Migros Culture Percentage ) and private patrons .

Awards

  • Sponsorship award of the local citizens of Bremgarten 2011

literature

  • Bremgarten cellar theater: 20 years of Bremgarten cellar theater 67/87. Bremgarten 1987.
  • Fridolin Kurmann: Five decades of Bremgarten cellar theater. In: Bremgarter Neujahrsblätter 2017, pp. 43–60.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Bremgarten cellar theater, history on the Bremgarten cellar theater website, accessed on March 9, 2017.
  2. ^ Fridolin Kurmann: Five decades of Bremgarten cellar theater. In: Bremgarter Neujahrsblätter, 2017, pp. 43–60.
  3. ↑ See the list of the Bremgarten cellar theater's own productions since 1967 ( PDF ), accessed on March 9, 2017.
  4. ↑ Landscape theater “With Chrüüz and Flag” was a crowd puller. Aargauer Zeitung of September 3, 2012, accessed on March 13, 2017.
  5. ↑ Fellini fatal. Neue Zürcher Zeitung of March 13, 2017, accessed on March 13, 2017.
  6. ↑ See the list of puppet theater productions since 1991 ( PDF ), accessed on March 9, 2017.
  7. ^ Peter Arnold: Spatz & Co., Baden AG . In: Andreas Kotte (Ed.): Theater Lexikon der Schweiz . Volume 3, Chronos, Zurich 2005, ISBN 3-0340-0715-9 , p. 1707 f.
  8. ↑ Hunters shoot open-air theater in the forest - because of the wild animals. Aargauer Zeitung of July 26, 2016, accessed on March 13, 2017.
  9. ↑ "We are proud of you." Sponsorship award from local residents: the cellar theater receives 10,000 francs. Wohler Anzeiger from November 29, 2011.

Coordinates: 47 ° 21 '5.4 "  N , 8 ° 20' 37"  E ; CH1903:  six hundred and sixty-eight thousand three hundred seventy-seven  /  244 909