German theater landscape
German theater landscape (or German theater system ) is a collective term for all public, private and independent theaters, production houses and theater festivals in Germany. Currently there are approx. 140 public theaters , approx. 10 independent production houses, approx. 50 theater festivals and approx. 1000 independent theater professionals or independent groups.
Theater types
The public theaters are currently the largest group among the theaters with around 40,000 employees and an annual funding volume of 2.1 million euros and 19 million viewers. Here we distinguish between regional theaters , municipal theaters and state theaters - under the term of the Municipal Theater are subsumed - and by its own ensemble and repertoire are excellent. The free or, better still, independent theater scene is the most diverse part of the German theater landscape, with more than 1000 independent theater artists who are involved in groups, ensembles, permanent collectives or only on a project basis. Some of the independent theaters of the independent scene are also referred to as production houses , such as Hebbel am Ufer 1–3 (Berlin), Künstlerhaus Mousonturm (Frankfurt), Sophiensæle (Berlin) and Kampnagel (Hamburg).
The respective theater landscapes of the federal states are administered and structured federally, since the educational and cultural sovereignty lies with the federal states. This means that the cultural administrations of the municipalities and the federal states are responsible for the financing, organization and supervision of the theaters. The theaters of a federal state are treated as separate theater systems that are in constant change, as can be seen in the example of the theater system in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, which has changed completely in the last six years, including the merger of several houses, which must be viewed very critically (Schwerin and Parchim to the West Mecklenburg State Theater, Greifswald, Stralsund, Anklam and Putbus to the State Theater Northeast ), the closure of branches and the dismissal of staff. An average of 200 to 500 employees work in a city theater in order to rehearse an average of 400 performances per theater per year and bring them to the stage. The development of a play is analogous to the production cycle . All related goals, tasks and instruments are subsumed under the term of theater management . The most important areas of a theater are the artistic departments with the ensembles (drama, opera, dance), technology and administration. The annual budget of a theater is between 10 million euros for small city and state theaters and 100 million euros for the state theaters in Stuttgart and Dresden; Of this budget, an average of 82% is financed by donations and 18% by own income, which is mostly made up of ticket sales and sponsoring . Measured against the diversity of the theaters' services, public grants are nevertheless small and the cultural sector is rarely overfunded, so that careful management of the funds made available is necessary.
There is a tendency towards decreasing audience numbers and overproduction
The theaters are currently confronted by a tendency towards decreasing audience numbers and a decreasing legitimacy in politics and the population - so the audience figures have stagnated for years at 19 million, of which more and more tickets for so-called accompanying programs are sold. At the same time, the number of free groups and festivals is increasing. The theaters react by producing more and more with fewer and fewer resources in order to compensate for the falling audience and to maintain the interest of the audience. This overproduction leads to the overuse of resources, especially of the employees (increasing number of productions per employee), and thus to imbalances in the theater. That is why theater management will increasingly be an instrument for reducing such overproduction and for establishing a balance in the future. It is designed as a sustainable and balanced management, geared towards the preservation and renewal of the theater as an institution and the resources used in it. One of the most important future tasks will therefore be to drastically reduce the number of new productions and accompanying programs in order to relieve employees and budgets.
Change of theater management
Theaters are usually directed by artistic directors. The director is still the artistic and administrative head in one person. Not least because of the widespread conversion of directing and proprietary operations into GmbH, a new actor has been added in the form of the commercial director (or managing director) who is equated with the director. There are also theaters that are run by several directors with equal rights (Mannheim, Lübeck, Essen), who together form a directorate in which all responsibilities are distributed in accordance with the rules of procedure. In view of the growing complexity of the tasks and responsibilities of the theater directors, the directorate is becoming increasingly clear as a future model compared to the individual directors. The range of tasks of a theater management can hardly be seriously perceived by an individual today.
Since the directorship contracts are usually only designed for five years, and many directors are already striving for the next stage at the next larger theater after a successful directorship (director carousel), there are very frequent changes of director in Germany. With an average change of directorship after 7.5 years, almost 19 theaters change their directors every year. This makes long-term planning for the institutional and technical development of a theater difficult, since every director puts his focus on short-term artistic success and often has little focus on the sustainable development and security of the theater. This often reduces the ability to react to crises and planned cuts. Ensembles have to find each other in ever shorter periods of time, so the quality of the ensemble's performance and the staging decreases bit by bit. But the personal and family situation of the artists at the theaters, which are linked to the contracts of the artistic directors, is made more difficult if this involves changing to another theater, to another city and area at the latest every five years, often earlier. In addition, all questions relating to the sustainable security of the theater in the region are ignored.
Role and selection of the artistic director
The general manager is still mostly the director of a theater; The tendency, however, is in the direction of directorates, in which several directors jointly manage and secure the theater. The appointment of the artistic director takes place less and less through a public or informal advertisement; More and more often, potential candidates are approached directly and a pool of applicants is formed; Only the representatives of the shareholders and advisors, mostly of the stage association (advisory directors of other theaters), are involved in the selection process. The ensemble does not participate. Once the director has been elected, he / she introduces himself / herself to his future employees at a general meeting. A change of artistic director is a cultural and personal break in the theater business. There is a clear demarcation from the predecessor, most of the artists and pieces from the predecessor, as well as its entire corporate image, are not adopted. In the course of a change of artistic director, the team and ensemble will be reassembled, non-renewals will be declared, new ensemble members will be signed up and a new artistic program will be developed. In their contracts, directors usually undertake to achieve quantitative goals, which are, however, hardly decisive for the current contract, but are only addressed when the director is renegotiating or not renewing.
The free or independent theater scene
The free or independent scene is diverse and diverse and is made up of different areas. There are numerous independent groups who usually present their pieces at special festivals ( Ruhrtriennale , Impulse ) or in the production houses set up for such groups or in public theaters. Production houses such as Kampnagel (HH), the Sophiensæle and the HAU (Berlin) and the Mousonturm (Frankfurt am Main) are highly professional companies that offer space for the production and presentation of the pieces. But there is also an independent scene in the cities that works on a local level or very selectively, such as one-off performances (summer theater) or that work with lay people, prisoners and young people at risk. Most independent groups pursue a different, mostly very advanced aesthetic compared to the city theater and often combine several disciplines such as drama, music, dance and performance in interdisciplinary programs and formats. The independent scene is also known for its large, resilient national and international network. For some years now she has been opening her spectrum to artistic research. Many groups emerge today from the courses set up for this purpose in Gießen and Hildesheim (both applied theater studies), Hamburg (directing) and Bochum (scenic research) and.
Features of the public theater
For theater management, there are important characteristics of theater that can be used to get an up-to-date picture of a highly diversified theater landscape. Entering or dealing with each individual theater means here again and again reorientation about the characteristics and its condition.
Multiparty and repertoire operation
Many theater companies in Germany combine several branches under one roof. The most common variant of a multi-branch house is the combination of opera and drama, and - where still available - with ballet or dance as a three-branch theater. These theaters are characterized by their repertoire operations - the theater's repertoire presents several different productions in parallel. Changing plays and premieres are shown on the different days of the week. A manageable number of works are part of the recurring canon that is staged in the houses, the classics and early moderns. The works are often staged and presented with a current view of the material. In addition, there are numerous contemporary dramas that are offered to theaters by publishers or that arise as piece commissions or author residencies at the theater. In addition, commissions are given to contemporary composers for new operas and dance pieces. New choreographies are mostly created in the theater or are adopted by other theaters.
Ensemble and city theater concept
The term ensemble can be understood in two ways: On the one hand, in the theater, ensemble means the entire workforce, i.e. artistic, technical and administrative staff.In the narrower sense, this only includes the stage artists who play on the stage evening after evening, singing and dancing. In drama, opera and dance, it consists of a fixed number of artists who belong to the group of stage actors who form an ensemble for at least one season that can be extended over and over again. A special quality can develop when certain artists work together over several seasons at some houses, creating great trust and intensity on the stage. In addition, an ensemble that has been involved in a city for a longer period of time in a similar composition enables a great sense of belonging to the region and a high level of identification with the theater. A connection and a special closeness is created between the audience and the performers. The ensemble is often referred to here as the “face of the theater”.
Subsidy and Productivity Dilemma
By their very nature, theaters are labor-intensive companies with labor costs amounting to around 80% of the total budget. The production as a product of the theater lives from the people who play, sing, dance and work on and behind the stage. The price of the tickets, which is already 70-90% subsidized, cannot grow to the same extent as the personnel costs (productivity dilemma of the theater) due to its low elasticity. This is one of the reasons why theaters will also need fixed grants (subsidies) in the future in order to be able to maintain the labor-intensive work. The subsidies from the federal states and municipalities for theater operations averaged 80% of the total budget of the theater. This meets with criticism, as the theaters are hardly able to increase their income and their productivity significantly. The annual wage increases alone lead to further increases in personnel costs and to a further distortion of the budget of the theaters.
Multi-dimensional workflows and work processes
At the same time, work is being done on the conception of new works, on rehearsing revivals or developing new pieces on the rehearsal stages. The repertoire system is responsible for the staggered and parallel processes, in which several pieces are planned and shown in parallel in the program.
The theater as a manufactory
The theaters in Germany are manufacturers with up to a hundred different professions under one roof. Some theatrical professions have almost died out, such as hatmaker, cleaning or shoemaker, quartermaster and cashmaker. In a theater company, artistic, technical, administrative and manual professions come together. They all contribute to the development of the ideas and their implementation up to the presentation on the stage. Only a few of them are visible to the audience.
See also
literature
- Deutscher Bühnenverein, theater statistics 1990–2015
- Deutscher Bühnenverein (2002), professions in the theater
- Fülle, Henning (2016), Free Theater. The modernization of the German theater landscape (1960-2010)
- Basic Law, Article 20
- Kulturpolitische Gesellschaft, Kulturpolitik aktuell, Das Theater mit dem Theater, in Kulturpolitische Mitteilungen, 138
- Master’s degree in Theater and Orchestra Management, University of Music and Performing Arts, long-term survey of the German theater landscape, as of 2016
- Metrum (2009), 9 models for a restructuring of the theater and orchestra in MVPom
- Nachtkritik (2016): Reporting on the Rostock Volkstheater
- ndr.de, Theaterfusion in MV is perfect, July 21, 2016
- Röper, Henning (2003), theater management
- Schmidt, Thomas (2011), From crisis management to future viability, in: Jb. Kulturmanagement
- Schmidt, Thomas (2012), Theater Management - An Introduction
- Schmidt, Thomas (2016), Theater Management, in: Scheytt, Oliver, Compendium for Cultural Management
- Schmidt, Thomas (2016), Theater, Crisis and Reform. A criticism of the German theater system
Individual evidence
- ^ Schmidt (2012), Theater Management - An Introduction; Röper (2003), theater management
- ↑ Deutscher Bühnenverein, Theater Statistics (1990 - 2015)
- ^ Fülle, Henning (2016), Free Theater
- ↑ Basic Law, Article 20
- ↑ ndr.de, Theater fusion in MV is perfect, July 21, 2016; Kulturpolitische Gesellschaft, Kulturpolitik aktuell, Das Theater mit dem Theater, in Kulturpolitische Mitteilungen, 138, III / 2012, pp. 14-16.
- ^ Metrum (2009), nine models for a restructuring of the theater and orchestra in MVP; Nachtkritik (2016): Reporting on the Rostock Volkstheater
- ^ Schmidt, Thomas, theater management, Röper, theater management; Deutscher Bühnenverein, Theater Statistics 2014/15, Cologne, 2016
- ^ Deutscher Bühnenverein, Theater Statistics, 2000/01 to 2014/15
- ^ Fullness, Henning, Free Theater
- ^ Schmidt, Theatermanagement, in: Scheytt, Oliver: Kompendium Kulturmanagement
- ↑ Deutscher Bühnenverein, Theater Statistics, 2000 - 2015; only a few smaller houses, such as the Marburg Theater, are an exception. Here the general manager is also the commercial manager in personal union, and the usual second manager position has been dispensed with.
- ↑ Schmidt, Thomas (2016), Theater, Crisis and Reform
- ↑ Master's degree in Theater and Orchestra Management, University of Music and Performing Arts, long-term survey of the German theater landscape, as of 2016
- ^ Schmidt (2011), From crisis management to future viability, in: Yearbook for Cultural Management, 2011
- ↑ Schmidt (2016), Theater, Crisis and Reform
- ↑ Röper (2003) Theatermanagement, Schmidt (2016) Theater, Crisis and Reform
- ^ Fülle, Hennig (2016) Free Theater, 2016; Schmidt (2016), Theater Management, in: Scheytt, Kompendium Kulturmanagement
- ^ Schmidt, T., Theater, Kris und Reform, p. 85
- ↑ ibid., P. 85 f
- ↑ ibid, p. 86
- ↑ Cleaning workers (milliners) make the headgear of the actresses on the stage, a Kascheur is a stage sculptor who models decorations and backdrops (sculptures, artificial facades or landscapes) from plastics, a setup master at the theater is for the pistols and the like. Fencing weapons responsible. Sa Professions in the theater, DBV 2002
- ^ Schmidt, Theater, Kris und Reform, p. 87