Theater Bremen
The Theater Bremen is a public four-genre theater with the Bremen Opera , the spectacle of Bremen , the Tanztheater Bremen and the MOKS Bremen (pilot artists and students) in the city of Bremen . The four architecturally connected venues that belong to a street block form the different stages of the institution. They offer a total of up to 1426 spectators. In the field of music theater, the theater has been working with the Bremen Philharmonic Orchestra , which was founded in 1820 and in which it has a 22% stake, since 1917 . The theater gained international fame from 1962 onwards during the management of Kurt Huebner , who shaped the "Bremen style" with innovative and avant-garde drama productions and made the theater an experimental laboratory for the German cultural landscape.
history
A new theater in the city (1910-1933)
The dominant theater in Bremen was the city theater in the ramparts for decades . After a change of artistic director , the focus of the performance shifted significantly to music theater , so that the drama was hardly offered a stage in the Hanseatic city . For this reason, the trained journalist and author Johannes Wiegand (* 1874; † 1940) and the theater scholar Eduard Ichon (* 1879; † 1943) decided to set up their own theater dedicated exclusively to acting . For this purpose they acquired the Tonhalle am Neustadtswall on the left bank of the Weser in 1909 . The architect Joseph Ostwald converted the building into a theater in the spring of 1910, the simple facade of which was dominated by six rectangular pilasters . In the new venue, run as a personal company , mainly modern productions were presented, which the people of Bremen received extremely positively.
Ichon and Wiegand soon realized that there were opportunities to build a larger theater with higher capacities. The decision was made for the location to the east of the ramparts and the architects August Abbehusen and Otto Blendermann were commissioned to construct the new venue. They designed a theater in the neoclassical style, the economic wing of which was reminiscent of the buildings from 1800, today's theater on Goetheplatz . Six columns dominated the front facade in front of a calm, recessed wall front and supported the gable , behind which the roof rose. A relief by the artist Ernst von Wachold was installed on the gable . This wall, located a few meters back, created a balcony at the height of the first floor, which included the columns and had large, wide windows through which sunlight could flood into the corridors. The new venue, the design of which received a lot of recognition in specialist circles, was externally imposing, but actually kept architecturally very simple. The stage was 18 meters wide and 17 meters deep. The opening of the theater, which offered 804 spectators in the stalls and on two tiers, took place on August 15, 1913, when Johannes Wiegand staged Oscar Wilde's play A Woman Without Meaning .
Ichon and Wiegand ran the new theater as Bremer Schauspielhaus GmbH and set themselves the goal of creating a contrast to the predominant directions of the Wagner theater , the grand opéra and the theater of representation such as at the Burgtheater . It was more oriented towards the Goethe Theater with psychological drama and interpersonal discourses. The writers Hermann Bahr , Herbert Eulenberg and Rudolf Presber published a statement on the occasion of the inauguration of the new venue:
"We consider it a good sign of the times that it is possible for artistic and organizational prowess and energy to maintain and develop the audience's interest in the tasks of the Schaubühne, despite the much-lamented danger in the cinema."
In the following years, numerous young actors were drafted into military service in the First World War; however, it was possible to compensate for the loss of performances by increasing guest performances by other theaters. The old house on Neustadtswall was also used until 1917, but was then given up. In the same year, the two theater directors at the Schauspielhaus introduced comic Singspiele , which also attracted a large audience. The income thus achieved secured the actual artistic drama program.
After the end of the war, Wiegand and Ichon decided to give each season a central theme to which all pieces should be subordinated. For the 1918/1919 season, the title “The individual and society in the drama of the European peoples of the last decades” was chosen. In order to keep income constant even in the economically difficult post-war years, the idea of community theater was developed. This project, which should make the theater accessible to all classes and circles of the population, was realized in cooperation and with the Goethe-Bund . With the help of organized visits and subscriptions, a permanent community of visitors was created, whose money the theater built up and supported permanently. A corresponding offer was published under the title "Subscriptions with Community Character":
“The community theater is an art community that is bound by no other belief than that of the mission of the German spirit in the world. It is a conscious attempt in a theater that knows no differences in rank or class and that, unlike other organizations, is free from any party-political attitude. The community theater provides a carefully selected, materially interesting and intellectually high-quality program. The subscription, comprising 21 performances (every 14 days) costs Mk. 42. The subscription can be paid in six installments. [...] The distribution of places is based on the principle of equal rights. "
The playhouse established itself as a theater, the numerous world premieres of which were considered daring. Ichon and Wiegand preferred the newer and contemporary drama and included numerous pieces by well-known contemporary dramatists in the repertoire. The high quality of the performances and the high number of visitors meant that the venue could continue to be operated independently and profitably, whereas the city theater was dependent on subsidies of 600,000 Reichsmarks . During the years of the Weimar Republic, the ensemble of the Schauspielhaus included Hans Söhnker , Gustaf Gründgens , Albert Bassermann , Paul Wegener , Käthe Dorsch , Fritz Kortner , Heinz Rühmann , Bernhard Wicki , Willy Fritsch , Tilla Durieux , Lil Dagover and Emil Jannings . Between 1923 and 1929, the later Hollywood director Douglas Sirk acted as senior director . From around 1920, expressionist works with socially critical content were also increasingly performed, which, however, initially met with criticism and alienation from the Bremen cultural landscape - as happened around 1918 with Georg Kaiser's Gas . After a few years, however, the style also received recognition at the Schauspielhaus. The plays by Gerhart Hauptmann , winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature , were also frequently performed at the Schauspielhaus , at least one of which was part of the ensemble's repertoire in almost every season . The writer enjoyed great popularity among the Bremen population and theater-goers and on the occasion of his upcoming 60th birthday a morning party was held on September 3, 1922 with President Friedrich Ebert as the guest of honor. Hauptmann's drama Die Jungfern vom Bischofsberg was played and the author judged the staging that it had produced "satisfaction that went far beyond the capital city's experiences".
In 1930 the theater celebrated its twentieth anniversary. During this time, 758 different works were presented in a total of 7001 performances. Leopold Jessner and Carl Zuckmayer , among others, congratulated on the anniversary . Gerhart Hauptmann wrote
"I am delighted with your beautiful theater and am enthusiastic about the performances and the ideal spirit that animates the whole thing."
and Thomas Mann also expressed his deep appreciation for Ichon and Wiegand:
“It is with heartfelt sympathy that I hear about the upcoming twentieth anniversary of your theater. Personal relationships from the past may justify my joining the well-wishers. My daughter, who is now playing in Munich, was once a member of your stage, and it was then that I had the opportunity to appreciate the spirit of the house, the structure of your schedule and your artistic achievements. I am familiar with the distinguished artistic attitude that is educative for its actors and the audience alike, by which this house is run, the theatrical idealism, which remains inalienable for all its practical suppleness, and which can be addressed as specifically German. My congratulations go to an honorable past twenty years and a future for which this past is a guarantee. "
The time of National Socialism (1933–1945)
After the National Socialists came to power , it became problematic to keep the theater going. As early as 1933, every artist had to apply for a work permit from the politically responsible. Ichon and Wiegand were forced to take long-time director Wilhelm Chmelnitzky on leave because of his Jewish faith . Chmel , as he was called, was at the theater from 1930 to 1933 after a guest production ( Der Frauenarzt ).
The two founders of the venue consistently rejected the ideology of the rulers in spirit. They had decided to continue the playhouse as a private theater - in contrast to the city theater, which was nationalized shortly after the NSDAP came to power . The schedules were designed without the involvement of well-known National Socialist authors, whose works were being performed more and more frequently on other stages. Although no forbidden pieces were performed, people always acted on the edge of what was just barely permitted by skilfully rewriting pieces or benefiting from the German-friendly attitude of foreign authors. However, there were also exceptional cases in which works that were actually unpopular were performed. In May 1936, for example, Wasser für Canitoga celebrated its premiere , a play by Hans José Rehfisch, who was imprisoned in 1933 and forced to emigrate in the year of the performance . Attila Hörbiger took on a guest role in the production. Almost three years later, in May 1939, Wiegand and Ichon succeeded in getting The Good Enemies from Günther Weißenborn , who had been a member of the Red Orchestra in Berlin since 1937, on the stage . Also for the performance was the lifelong child of Robert Neuner. Erich Kästner , whose works were destroyed in the course of the book burning in 1933, hid behind this author's pseudonym .
Franz Reichert, who worked as a director and game director in Bremen from 1936 to 1941, later wrote in his autobiography that the venue was the "only theater" in which there was "neither a Hitler nor a Goebbels portrait". He described the leadership duo as follows:
“Both grew up in the old liberal tradition, as far removed from Nazis and the criminal brown ideology as two stars that are millions of miles apart. Wiegand had retained the liberal attitude of the revolutionaries of 1848, Ichon was more conservative, but both remained convinced German democrats, free of chauvinism, throughout their lives. "
Reichert also added that you had to "look for the Nazis with the lantern" in the theater. Instead of portraits of the rulers, the painting Red Horses by Franz Marc was found in the foyer of the Schauspielhaus , whose pictures the National Socialists classified as Degenerate Art .
The Bremen theater functioned as a kind of liberal island within the city. However, Ichon and Wiegand did not dare to oppose more openly and also had to always cooperate with those responsible for politics in order to secure independence. So they tried to ingratiate themselves with official letters and expressions of sympathy. Wiegand in particular had a talent for deception, which soon earned him the nickname "living baron of lies" behind closed doors. Nevertheless, as early as May 1933, monitoring of the performances was ordered, and the so-called review list for the 1935/1936 season read:
"Before the overthrow, the Schauspielhaus gained a great position in what was then Germany through numerous premieres by Jewish and foreign authors, which it still feeds on today, especially in Bremen."
With these statements one tried to reduce the performance of the theater and to denigrate it. From time to time, doubts arose about Wiegand's loyalty to the line. So it said in the 1936/1937 season in an internal circular from the propaganda leader of the Weser-Ems party district:
“I would like to point out that the conduct of Director Wiegand towards various departments of the party, in particular the Hitler Youth , the Bremen State and my department, resulted in major differences. As a skilful advertising man, Director Wiegand intends to win over responsible party officials, who are not informed about the events in detail, by means of prefaces for the advertising of his theater. As the past has shown, Director Wiegand will know how to use press articles and advertisements to highlight those who signed the appeals as guarantors of his National Socialist enterprise. "
The head of propaganda also pointed out that the theater is fundamentally different from the other venues in his area of responsibility and is also "counted among the theaters in the Reich that are allowed to perform a pure entertainment program of modern social plays".
A closure was not possible because of the high artistic level and the good reputation of the house, especially since the theater directors had strong support from the Bremen population. The possibility of nationalization would only have been offered in the event of financial losses, which is why Wiegand and Ichon tried even more to gain as many viewers as possible and to guarantee a wide variety of offers, of which an average of 26 premieres per season is evidence. The sales revenues actually remained high and constant. Among other things, this was due to the fact that, according to Reichert, the visitor organization functioned “as precisely as a precious Swiss clockwork”, but also to the fact that the community, Kraft durch Freude, had a large subscription .
Despite the internally oppositional stance, in order to maintain the appearance of a party loyal to the party, it was necessary at times to integrate into the National Socialist cultural landscape. For example, during the 1936/1937 season the theater was involved in the Gau culture week of the NSDAP-Gaus Weser-Ems and Joseph Goebbels described the "Wehrmacht supervision of the theater" against the background of the fact that over the years more and more members of the Wehrmacht were among the audience, as "exemplary for the empire".
Johannes Wiegand died of blood poisoning on February 7, 1940 after 27 years of joint management . In the following years the theater continued to be independent, but during the Second World War , instead of newer plays, more classics and comedies were on the program to distract the population. Ichon tried to continue to run the venue liberally and not to allow himself and the house to be taken over. He was even more hostile to the National Socialists than his partner , although he had a little less skill at deception than the latter. Ichon died on January 19, 1943. The circumstances of his death could never be fully elucidated. In his home study, he choked on carbon monoxide that escaped from the stove. According to official information, it was a defect and therefore an accident. However, suspicions about a possible suicide were also expressed. Hans Tannert, who had been promoted from senior theater director to acting director after Wiegand's death, succeeded the founder of the theater and pursued Ichon and Wiegand's idea for a few months. The last performance in their interest took place on June 25, 1943: Fritz Peter Buch's comedy A Whole Guy was presented . In the 33 years from 1910 to 1943, the Schauspielhaus celebrated a total of more than 300 world premieres.
Almost a month later, on August 1, 1943, the political rulers took Tannert on leave and appointed Curt Gerdes as the new artistic director, the director of the so-called State Theater since 1933 (formerly City Theater), who now occupied both posts in personal union. Gerdes behaved in accordance with the lines and party lines and had nine pieces performed in the theater, the majority of which were comedies. One year after he took office, the theater was merged with the State Theater by order of the Reich Ministry for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda , and it was completely subordinated to its management. The new season 1944/1945 was to be officially opened on August 19, 1944, but the night before the theater was badly damaged by Allied air raids and on September 1, a Reich decree was issued with the order to close all theaters. Another air raid broke out on October 6th. During this, the state theater was completely destroyed. The playhouse at the Ostertor also burned down almost to the foundation walls.
Temporary solutions (1945–1949)
After the Second World War, the theater landscape in Bremen was by no means idle. As early as May 18, 1945, ten days after the end of the war, former members of the Schauspielhaus and the Staatstheater founded the Bremen Stage Artists' Working Group . Within a few weeks, the company organized a playable acting ensemble and offered small performances in different locations. Together with the businessman Franz Kruse, Willy A. Kleinau , who previously worked at the Schauspielhaus, founded a civil law company to which the US military government added Concordia on Schwachhauser Heerstrasse as a venue.
On September 19, 1945, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's tragedy Stella was staged there . From October onwards, various renovations were carried out on the small house and the stage technology was improved. The 1945/1946 season began with the performance of Gotthold Ephraim Lessing's Nathan the Wise , during which the ensemble included Gert Westphal , Eberhard Fechner , Doris Schade , Ursula Noack , Ruth Leuwerik , Hans-Joachim Kulenkampff and Hans Hessling . In the months that followed, the number of visitors to the theater rose sharply. It was mainly used to pass the time and to distract from daily distress and therefore offered mostly amusing pieces in cheerful and relaxing genres . Nevertheless, some classics by Heinrich von Kleist , Friedrich Schiller and William Shakespeare were also brought to the stage. One of the highlights was the German premiere of The Stranger City by John Boynton Priestley . The entrance fee could also be paid in kind to the actors, or in coals to heat the auditorium. In August 1946, the Americans deposed Willy A. Kleinau and appointed new theater management.
The music theater ensemble, under the direction of the former baritone and senior director Philipp Kraus, has also been giving performances since 1945 and shown excerpts from well-known operas in town houses, cinemas and in the art gallery. They also performed at concerts and matinees . From December 10, 1945, a gymnasium at the Delmestrasse School in Neustadt served as a venue. In addition to one tier, it even had small boxes and offered space for 580 spectators. However, there was a lack of adequate costumes, decorative paint, an orchestra pit and complete stage technology. Wolfgang Vogt-Vilseck was engaged as the director of the new Bremen Opera House (later Bremer Oper GmbH ). By the end of 1946, 220 sold-out performances were on offer, and from November 6, 1947, after approval by the military government, the music theater ensemble played in the large hall of the concert hall with a capacity of 1,259 people, Die Glocke an der Domsheide . Was performed Fidelio , which they wanted to symbolically build a bridge to the prewar period, since the opera Ludwig van Beethoven was the last piece that was performed before the destruction of the State Theater. At the turn of 1947/1948, the music theater had 4,550 subscribers and employed between 220 and 250 people. The theater officer of the US military government was Frederic Mellinger until the beginning of 1949 , who unsuccessfully directed it himself.
In the course of the currency reform in 1948 , the Bremer Bühnenkünstler and Bremer Oper GmbH ran into economic difficulties and the number of visitors declined. In the spring of 1949 the last productions were played, the season ended prematurely and paused for several weeks.
New beginning (1949–1962)
In the same year the theater of the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen GmbH was founded , in which the working group of Bremen stage artists merged . The new company, with the city of Bremen as sole shareholder, set itself the goal of rebuilding a regular theater operation in the Hanseatic city. Half the employer and half the employee were elected to the twelve-person supervisory board , and the private law form guaranteed greater organizational independence. Willi Hanke (1902–1954) was hired as the new director and on August 25, 1949, the Kammerspiele Bremen , a private theater founded in the post-war years, joined the GmbH. Only two days later, the Theater am Ostertor was inaugurated on the site of the old playhouse , the new building which, after almost six years on temporary stages, was to serve as the main theater for the theater. With the affiliation of the Bremer Oper GmbH on June 28, 1950, the Bremen Theater presented itself again as a complete cultural apparatus.
Hanke had a strong affinity for music theater and engaged numerous famous conductors, such as Karl Elmendorff (1891–1962). Together with the theater management, he took the view that only demanding opera performances could demonstrate the artistic and technical possibilities of the new house, which still had to be tested. For this reason, he was usually guided by the artistic mindset and less by illusions and rule-based principles. He also had works by Richard Wagner staged, although this was frowned upon in the post-war period, as it was popular with the National Socialists. Another highlight in the first years of his directorship was the performance of Mathis the painter by Paul Hindemith . Hanke had great success with his concept: In the 1950/1951 season, the theater recorded 398,615 visitors and around 8,000 subscribers. In the Kammerspiele, which was used exclusively as a speaking stage, the premises of which served as a small theater, 250 performances were played. In November 1954, Hanke died in office at the age of 52, shortly after his contract was extended for another three years. For the season of 1954/1955, which had already been planned, the chief dramaturge and close confidante Hankes Conrad Heinemann took over the management on a temporary basis, while speculations arose in the Bremen public and in the daily newspapers about possible successors and a possible crisis in directors. For the 1955/1956 season, however, Albert Lippert from the Deutsches Schauspielhaus in Hamburg was won over as the new director, who had high expectations due to his origins.
Under Lippert's leadership, especially in his early years, the theater developed decisively and reached a high artistic level. It was the first federal German theater to enter into a cooperation with a stage in the German Democratic Republic - with the Rostock Volkstheater . This existed for several years and was used, among other things, in numerous mutual guest performances. An important director under Lippert was Walter Jokisch , who excelled in numerous productions. At the same time, however, the director himself staged many plays and was often on stage as an actor. Most of the time he received great praise for his artistic achievements. In January 1957, the Volksbühne invited representatives from the authorities for art and science, the building industry, theater management, the trade unions, the cultural cartel and visitor organizations to a meeting to discuss the necessity and planning of a second large theater, as it was believed that the Theater am Goetheplatz, as it was now called, had reached the limits of its capacity as a result of the constant increase in visitors. A committee was set up which submitted a memorandum to the Senate of the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen at the beginning of the 1958/1959 season, in which the construction of a theater with 800 seats on a hill in the Bremen ramparts was proposed. It was stated that 330,000 Bremen residents had more than 4,000 theater seats available every evening in the 1920s, whereas this number would have decreased to 1,200 seats for 550,000 residents in 1958. It was also stated that for this reason the theater management and the authorized visitor organizations were already forced to limit subscriptions or membership rights and feared that the public interested in art and culture might turn away from Bremen. Proponents of a further theater building stated that the four-part theater with drama, music theater, operettas and ballet could no longer be kept up with the theater on Goetheplatz and that too few drama premieres would be offered. The Kammerspiele are technically unsatisfactory, especially since the publishers are not interested in performances there because the royalties are too low.
Ultimately, the discussion about a new theater fizzled out, even though the Bremen Theater had the highest occupancy rate of all theaters in the Federal Republic of Germany in August 1960. One of the highlights during Lippert's directorship was the staging of Dyskolos , a comedy by the ancient Greek poet Menander that was only discovered in 1956 . In the 1960/1961 season, the artistic director was criticized for the first time when several daily newspapers accused him of having hired a below-average director in Alfred Stögmüller over a period of two years and of criticizing the allegedly mediocre level of the theater. In-house, the season was dominated by the conflict between Albert Lippert and his acting predecessor, chief dramaturge Conrad Heinemann. The latter was subsequently on leave. In order to avoid further criticism and the threat of dismissal, Lippert informed the supervisory board in May 1961 that he did not want to extend his contract, which expired in July 1962, for which he officially stated health reasons.
City theater from 1962 until today
Kurt Huebner (1962–1973)
In the 1962/1963 season, the Supervisory Board recruited Kurt Huebner from the Ulm Theater as the new director. The man from Hamburg brought in new ideas and revolutionized theater operations in Bremen. Together with personally committed artists, he created the so-called “Bremen Style” (see section on drama ) and led the theater to international fame. He put the focus of his work on drama, but also included music theater, so that the innovations rubbed off on this too. The traditionalists among the theatergoers were rather critical of this change and the number of subscriptions and members declined, but significantly more young viewers were attracted to the theater. On May 25, 1968, there was a scandal in the Theater am Goetheplatz when the actor Bruno Ganz interrupted the ongoing performance of the operetta Der Bettelstudent and read a political resolution against the enactment of the emergency laws, signed by 21 members of the theater . The action sparked great protests among the spectators, many of whom left the auditorium with boos and vicious cries. Huebner strongly disapproved of the artists going it alone and declared:
“The management of the Theater GmbH does not change its opinion - even in the case of emergency legislation - that the stage is intended as a place for artistic confrontation with the problems of people and society. She affirms the discussion with the theater audience as long as it deals with the comparison of artistic design with the reality of life, but not the stage as an arbitrary place of proclamation by its members. The place for this is outside the theater. "
The Federal Court of Justice ruled in favor of the theater in a legal dispute relating to copyright over a performance of the operetta Mask in Blue by Theater Bremen against a Berliner Bühnenverlag ( Felix Bloch Erben ) . The director Alfred Kirchner subsequently described the judgment as a grotesque and drastic restriction on the artistic freedom of the staging .
In 1970, Hübner revived the now vacant Concordia building and subsequently had it converted into a small, modern studio stage. From January 26, 1971, the house was inaugurated with the premiere of Yvonne, Princess of Burgundy and then served as the home stage of the Bremen dance theater under Johann Kresnik , but was also used by drama and often played by Rainer Werner Fassbinder , who worked in Bremen premiered four of his pieces: The Coffee House , The Burning Village , Pioneers in Ingolstadt , Bremer Freiheit . A contemporary program booklet said about the purpose of setting up the Concordia:
“The Concordia was an attempt to undermine a city-theater structure, to dismantle and remodel it without much ado. In a way, the opening of the Concordia was an excerpt. "
The last years of the directorship of Hübner were marked by disputes over competence and contracts with the social democratic Senator for Culture Moritz Thape , who was critical of the Bremen style. At the beginning of the 1968/1969 season, he informed the director that his contract should not be extended - a decision that he had to revise after massive protests from the Bremen cultural scene as well as large rallies and demonstrations by political youth. There were renewed disputes in the 1970/1971 season when Thape recommended that Huebner be dismissed on September 1, 1972, against which he complained. An agreement was reached out of court and Huebner remained in office. The personal differences between him and Thape became more and more apparent. Hübner demanded freedom of disposal over the financial means necessary for the theater work. Thape refused to do this and explained in the summer of 1971, before the 1971/1972 season opened, that he was not ready to renew the contract again. Hübner continued to experience great popular support, but was unable to assert himself again, so that he resigned from his office after the 1972/1973 season. This circumstance was criticized by numerous cultural workers, especially since the city of Bremen advertised at the same time in image advertisements with the "Bremen style" as a high-quality cultural program. A total of 166 premieres were performed under Hübner in eleven years - 69 in the Theater am Goetheplatz, 87 in the Kammerspiele and ten in the Concordia.
Peter Stoltzenberg (1973–1978)
Huebner was followed by Peter Stoltzenberg from the Heidelberg City Theater . He built up an almost completely new ensemble, which was difficult because the talented and now widely famous actors of the Huebner era had been poached. Among other things, however, the commitment of Evelyn Hamann and Barbara Sukowa succeeded ; the latter, however, only stayed for one season. As one of his first measures, Stoltzenberg developed the theater newspaper “Theater Kontakt” to keep visitors and subscribers up to date on current events and to inform them about the program and the background of the production. Despite the increasing number of visitors, the new director was exposed to more frequent criticism, especially with regard to the fact that he was unable to close the gap that had been created by Hübner's departure. Stoltzenberg was mostly true to the work and was also successful with this concept: the dance and music theater flourished and the Kammerspiele were sold out during almost every performance. In drama, on the other hand, there was a significant downturn in contrast to the previous directorship. The critics expected Stoltzenberg to be able to maintain the level of the “Bremen style”, which was impossible without Hübner as a leading figure. So the theater management experimented with many emergency solutions, numerous different directors, and on an interim basis Stoltzenberg even took over the theater management himself. In 1975 the director hired the Hungarian writer and director George Tabori . Its first production in Bremen in April 1976 was the tragedy The Trojans by Euripides , which ended in a scandal when over 200 spectators left the hall after around ten minutes during the premiere. A new, experimental stage was then set up especially for Tabori with the “theater laboratory” in the Concordia. Ten artists who already knew Tabori's way of working were recruited for this project only. The rehearsals were fundamentally different than at the other venues. Up to ten hours of group work was practiced daily, along with physical training and meditation . These methods led to the rehearsals for Hamlet , for example , taking just under six months. A total of four pieces were to be performed in the “Theaterlabor”, the defining innovation during Stoltzenberg's directorship: Talkshow , Siegmunds Freude , Ein Hungerkünstler and Hamlet . The first turned out to be a false start, the others, however, as great successes with the public, and the “theater laboratory” gained great importance for the further artistic development of Tabori. However, the Senator for Culture Horst Werner Franke disliked this type of theater, and after his visit to a performance of Siegmund's joy he expressed himself with the famous saying “I don't want the puke”.
In June 1977 the actors planned to fast for 40 days under medical supervision in the run-up to the premiere of Ein Hungerkünstler , which was controversially discussed in the Bremen population and received negatively by politicians. The action was prohibited at a specially convened Senate meeting. As early as November 1976, the theater's supervisory board had decided by five to four votes with two abstentions not to extend Stoltzenberg's contract. He was accused of a lack of new ideas and concepts, although the critics attested the artistic director an upward trend. At the end of the 1977/1978 season, Peter Stoltzenberg left office. With him, the now well-known choreographer Johann Kresnik and the actress Andrea Breth left the theater. Tabori went too; the “theater laboratory” was closed after only two years.
Arno Wüstenhöfer (1978–1985)
The new Artistic Director Arno Wüstenhöfer , as General Artistic Director , had helped the Wuppertal Theaters to gain national importance. In his first season 1978/1979 he had great success in Bremen. Two theater productions received an invitation to the Berlin Theatertreffen , and in 1979 the trade journal Theater heute named the Bremen theater “ Theater of the Year ”. Wüstenhöfer hired the dancer and choreographer Reinhild Hoffmann and the dancer and choreographer Gerhard Bohner as directors of the Bremen dance theater and the director Frank-Patrick Steckel as senior stage director for the theater. High-class music theater, but also cultural-political and spatial difficulties characterized Wüstenhöfer's tenure. The theater on Goetheplatz was used almost exclusively for operas, and the Kammerspiele as a very cramped building was no longer able to cope with the growing number of visitors and the numerous performances.
In the search for alternative venues, the former Bremen slaughterhouse was found in the autumn of 1978 , which was to be converted into a theater and cultural center. Even before the official change of director, the Senate decided in the summer to demolish a large part of the building, so that only the meat market hall and the boiler hall with the main tower remained. Nevertheless, the premiere of The Coronation of Richard III took place on December 9, 1978 in the meat market hall . by Hans Henny Jahnn in the production of Frank-Patrick Steckels. The play was performed a total of 27 times before the meat market hall was also dismantled on August 13, 1980. As a result, the theater company refused to continue to perform in the Kammerspiele and demanded an acting directorate with its own budget. This was tantamount to a scandal in the cultural landscape, which led to the fact that the spokesmen were fired, Steckel left the theater and Wüstenhöfer offered to resign. A few months later the Senate issued an ordinance on a subsidy cut over several seasons of a total of 12 million marks , which would inevitably have meant the closure of a division. For this reason, a large-scale demonstration "Against the Bremen Theater Death" was organized on October 31, 1981 in the theater on Goetheplatz, in which, in addition to ensembles of all genres and visitors, Claus Peymann and Bernhard Minetti took part. Bernhard Wicki , Peter Palitzsch , August Everding , Peter Zadek , Dieter Dorn , Ida Ehre and Kurt Hübner expressed their support in writing. The demonstrators then moved to the town hall and gave their opinion. At the end of the 1980/1981 season, the majority of the management staff and numerous members of the ensemble left the distressed theater, leaving behind an almost idle theater division. In the following season, Wüstenhöfer managed to run the theater safely by subjecting all departments and all employees to a strict austerity course and invited several well-known guest performances, which were positively received by the Bremen people.
During this time, two nicknames were established for the director: “Sparno” for his skillful use of the available financial resources and “Sir Arno” for his noble, self-critical manner of management, always trying to protect his employees from hostility. For reasons of age he resigned after the end of the 1984/1985 season, but was still able to celebrate the opening of the New Playhouse in November 1984, which finally solved the theater's capacity problems and whose construction he was able to wrest from the Senate as a final triumph. The cut in subsidies was never enforced and the Kammerspiele dissolved.
Tobias Richter (1985–1992)
Tobias Richter succeeded Wüstenhöfer and was the youngest theater director in Germany at the time. His first season was marked by internal disputes with the drama director Günter Krämer, who demanded greater autonomy in his division and protested against the planned dismissals of a dramaturge and the in-house director. An arbitration by the Senator for Culture was required, which resulted in the cancellation of the terminations. Thus Richter suffered a tactical defeat shortly after taking office. Richter attached great importance to the promotion of young people and so, for example, the affiliation of the youth theater MoKS as a fourth division in 1986 and the founding of the youth club fell into his directorship. The latter initiative emerged from a previous workshop in the 1986/1987 season and celebrated its first premiere on January 10, 1987. The members of the youth club focused on anarchist theater and created 18 productions in seven years. Richter was unable to fully meet the expectations placed on him and complained more and more about a lack of support and support - after the 1991/1992 season he left office. In retrospect, critics, in contrast, attested that he had a good musical theater, but a below-average drama.
Hansgünther Heyme (1992–1994)
In the spring of 1991, the theater's board of directors announced the engagement of Hansgünther Heyme as the new artistic director, who was considered to be drama-oriented and inclined to the "combat theater". An annual budget of 40 million German marks was agreed for his directorship - an amount that, according to Heyme, was very tightly calculated. According to his own statements, however, he received further verbal commitments from the SPD . After the state elections in autumn 1991, however, the promises were forfeited as the new traffic light coalition decided on further austerity measures. The demands on Heyme's leadership were far higher than the results, although there were some notable highlights in the acting. The media, which had previously praised him, turned against him over time, as they believed he polarized more with himself than with the theater. In the 1992/1993 season there was a threat of a deficit of almost 750,000 Deutsche Mark, which is why Heyme asked the Senate in March 1993 to terminate his contract early at the end of the 1993/1994 season and resigned earlier in the summer of 1993 after only one year of directorship. He remained senior director of the theater for a year, while administrative director Rolf Rempe took over management for the 1993/1994 season, which had already been planned. This turned out to be problem-free and unemotional. The main objective was to limit the damage and thus reduce the losses. As a means of organizing numerous guest performances and large Christmas and Easter revues, which brought additional income to the theater.
Klaus Pierwoß (1994-2007)
Klaus Pierwoß took over the management in the 1994/1995 season in a difficult economic situation. The number of spectators fell and the theater had little support and acceptance within politics and parts of the population - not least because of the two previous turbulent seasons. The studied German studies and former dramaturge put together a young ensemble and had ten premieres celebrated within 17 days in October 1994. A year later, eleven percent more viewers have been recorded, he was in conflict with the Bremen Senate for the first time over an appropriate budget. The increase in visitors was also due to several advertising campaigns, for example with Werder Bremen , which increased the awareness of the cultural institution again. An annual budget of 36.8 million marks was agreed for the 1996/1997 season; Also in 1996, the Kurt Huebner Prize was awarded for the first time for special achievements by the ensemble members. Meanwhile, the reputation of the Bremen theater rose again. The magazine Theater der Zeit described the house as a “highlight of the north”, while Theater heute wrote “Klaus Pierwoß is enjoying the upswing that his house has experienced after the cultural and political storms of the past season. His performance was convincing ”and the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung judged:“ Pierwoß runs one of the liveliest theaters in Germany ”.
In the following season, 1997/1998, the city of Bremen commissioned McKinsey & Company to identify savings opportunities in the household. The management consultancy came to the conclusion that the Bremen theater could save 6.5 million marks annually. This analysis led - precisely because of the very positive reviews of the past year - to massive protests by the artists 'Pierwoß' and the German Stage Association . The latter commissioned three counter-reports that refuted McKinsey's proposals. Ultimately, the Senate distanced itself from the report it had commissioned and extended the Intendant's contract to 2004, but there were again aggressive debates about the annual budget in 1998/1999. Helmut Baumann staged the musical La Cage aux Folles in 1999/2000 , which proved to be an unexpected success with the public and prompted Pierwoß to include a classical musical staged by Baumann in the program for each of his following seasons. During the 2002/2003 season, the theater on Goetheplatz could not be used due to extensive renovation work, so the ensemble moved to the Musical Theater Bremen . The technology there was not designed for musical theater productions, but with a few minor difficulties it was possible to bridge the season. The success of the performances during the months in the musical theater also had an impact on cultural-political decisions: If Klaus Pierwoß had rejected a contract offer from the Senate in March 2003 as being inappropriate, a revised version was presented to him, which he accepted, so that his directorship was extended until 2007 has been.
The 2005/2006 season developed into one of the most critical in recent theater history. In September 2005 the managing director Lutz-Uwe Dünnwald was dismissed without notice. The debts of the Bremen theater had grown to 4.8 million euros due to the constant underfunding . In October, employee salaries were stopped, and the Senate threatened the theater management with bankruptcy . The Bremen theater received expressions of solidarity from all over Germany, and the staff organized several large demonstrations. This led to the Senate finally granting 1.9 million euros to remedy the acute liquidity problems. In order to save the theater, the workforce waived their own contribution to Christmas and vacation pay . Dünnwald and Pierwoß had to answer for infidelity and admitted miscalculations in court, but were acquitted because of proven innocence. At the end of Klaus Pierwoß's directorship, whose most glamorous seasons included many critics in 2004/2005 and 2006/2007, the theater was over-indebted with around 6 million euros. The trend towards debt had already become apparent in the early 1990s. In addition to some self-inflicted financial problems, the main culprit for the poor economic situation is mostly attributed to the cultural policy of the state of Bremen. In the 13 years of his directorship, Pierwoß faced a total of nine cultural senators: Helga Trüpel , Bringfriede Kahrs , Bernt Schulte , Hartmut Perschau , Kuno Böse , Hartmut Perschau (again), Thomas Röwekamp , Peter Gloystein and Jörg Kastendiek . There was therefore no constant subsidy policy over a long period of time. Each Senator for Culture drew up its own concepts and grant commitments made by the predecessor were often changed or canceled during the current financial year. The "Pierwoß era" ended in the 2007/2008 season.
Hans-Joachim Frey (2007-2010)
For the 2007/2008 season, the supervisory board appointed the former director of the Dresden Semperoper Hans-Joachim Frey to succeed Pierwoß . He received a contract with a fixed term until 2012 and named as his goal a better artistic work with less available funds. The Concordia has now been given up as its own venue, the name Bremer Theater changed to Theater Bremen and a new logo designed. The new theater symbol is based on the Bremen Town Musicians and symbolizes the four remaining venues of the Theater Bremen (Theater am Goetheplatz, Schauspielhaus, Brauhauskeller and Moks). One of the goals of his tenure was to reposition the theater as a holistic cultural brand beyond the stage. In this way an increased integration with the economy and other cultural institutions should be made possible. During the artistic directorship of Frey, the Bremen Theater entered into a cooperation with the St. Stephani Cultural Church , which among other things includes so-called theater sermons on certain plays. The Bremen Theater Gallery was established in the foyer of the Theater am Goetheplatz , in which GABO , Armin Mueller-Stahl , Anna Thalbach , Christian Ludwig Attersee and Ai Weiwei, among others , have presented works. In recognition of these innovations, the theater received a number of prizes and awards; Among other things, those responsible were awarded the Bremen Prize for Innovative Marketing , the highlight of 2008 , from the Bremen Marketing Club in 2008 . In 2007 Frey also founded the International Culture Forum Theater Bremen (IKTB), of which he is chairman. This non-profit association accompanies productions, bundles sponsors and offers occasions to discuss economic and social issues.
At the beginning of his tenure, Frey had already announced the production of the musical Marie Antoinette by Michael Kunze and Sylvester Levay . This was given from January 30th to May 31st, 2009 in the Musical Theater Bremen. The production costs came to an unexpectedly high EUR 5.8 million from the Bremen theater budget. Instead of the expected 120,000 visitors, only 90,000 came. Ultimately, the play resulted in a loss of 2.5 million euros, the liquidity gap of Theater Bremen rose to a total of 4.8 million euros, which after 2005 meant the risk of bankruptcy for the second time within a few years . On May 6, 2009, Frey had denied rumors about possible financial problems, but later announced that the theater would have to fall back on grants that were earmarked for the coming seasons. In the first half of 2009, Frey complained about a lack of political backing and pointed out that when the contract was signed in 2007, the cultural authorities even asked him to undertake high-risk large-scale projects. In return, State Councilor for Culture Carmen Emigholz criticized the fact that the full extent of the debt is only gradually being revealed. At the beginning of December, the cultural deputation decided on a rescue plan, according to which the city will assume 3 million euros of the debts and the wage increases for the employees and grant a loan of 6.5 million euros for running costs. In the course of the political disputes over the consolidation concept, Frey asked in August 2009 - officially for personal reasons - for an early termination of the contract on August 1, 2010.
Board of Directors (2010–2012)
From the 2010/2011 season onwards, a five-person board of directors took over the artistic direction for the following two years. It is made up of the divisional heads Hans-Georg Wegner (music theater), Marcel Klett (drama), Patricia Stöckemann (dance), Rebecca Hohmann (MoKS) and the artistic operations director Martin Wiebcke. As in the early years of the house, artistic responsibility is shared. The appearance of the theater was revised and modernized, but the logo was retained. In order to stabilize the still precarious financial situation, the opera performance on the floating stage was canceled in the summer of 2011 after the production there had run into deficit in 2010. A future continuation of the lake stage was also rejected. The main focus of the artistic work is the increased cross-disciplinary production and an orientation towards a young audience. As these intentions supportive measure significantly reduced unit price for students is of Directors established and under the auspices of the Mayor Jens Böhrnsen the sponsorship model "classes go!" Initiated, the members of this same target group of structurally weak Bremer districts free entry to enable the theater. The intensified cooperation between the four divisions is evident in co-productions between Schauspiel and MoKS, dance theater and drama ( perpetual motion machine by Urs Dietrich ), dance theater and MoKS / young actors ( racing heart by Henrietta Horn ). The board of directors announced that it would strengthen the core competencies of a city theater again - the performances and the artists should thus once again be the sole center of theater work. An important step on this path was that the theater returned to regular repertoire operations and the downsizing of the stage of the New Playhouse, which had taken place in the course of the renovation in 2007, was reversed.
In July 2011, the theater was able to publish that the 2010/2011 season was economically balanced. For the first time in years, the theater generated a surplus again, but the old debts of around 4.5 million euros remain unaffected. A total of 170,000 spectators attended performances in the theater in the 2010/2011 season. In September 2011 it became known that the theater management had signed a "contract" with the city of Bremen to finance the house until the end of the 2017 season. The grant for the theater is fixed at € 26 million annually during this period. Mayor Jens Böhrnsen praised the outcome of the negotiations with the words: "Bremen is a city of culture, and with this step we are creating planning security for the next six years and thus reliable working conditions for our largest cultural institution."
The Bremen Theater, which became a member of the Opera Europa opera house network , had 447 employees in the 2008/2009 season, including 89 actors, singers (including choir) and dancers.
Michael Börgerding (from 2012/2013)
In 2010, the chairman of the supervisory board and state councilor for culture, Carmen Emigholz, announced the committee's decision to appoint Michael Börgerding, director of the Hamburg Theater Academy of the University of Music and Theater there and former chief dramaturge of the Thalia Theater , as the new director for the 2012/2013 season .
Börgerding relies on contemporary theater. In the 2013/2014 season, the Theater Bremen, after many years of drastic audience decline, recorded a significant increase in audience due to successful plays such as The Flying Dutchman , Orlando furioso and La traviata , but also the often sold-out hits The Art of Making Money - the Bremen Street Opera , I'm your man and innocence .
location
The Theater Bremen is located east of the Old Town and inner city, just outside the city walls in the district Ostertor in the district center . The nested building complex has a representative northern front at Goetheplatz and to the south occupies almost an entire quarter-circle street block, formed by the Ostertorwall and Goetheplatz in the north, Mozartstrasse in the east and Bleicherstrasse , which branches off directly at the theater from Goetheplatz, runs in an arch and meets the Mozartstraße to the southeast of the house.
Together with the nearby Gerhard-Marcks-Haus and Wilhelm-Wagenfeld-Haus art museums as well as the Villa Ichon , the central library of the Bremen City Library and the art gallery , the theater forms the so-called “culture mile” , which, thanks to its location, acts as a link between the old town on the one hand and the alternative, multicultural streets of the " quarter " on the other. The Theater Bremen is connected to the city's public transport network via the Theater am Goetheplatz stop on Ostertorsteinweg , which is served by lines 2 and 3 of the Bremen tram . The Ostertor / Kulturmeile underground car park run by Brepark (Bremer Parkraumbewirtschaftungs- und Management-GmbH) is also located on Bleicherstrasse.
Divisions
Musical theater
Music theater has long been one of the pillars of Theater Bremen and has existed as the second oldest branch almost since the beginning. The first piece of music was performed on May 9, 1917. It was Walter Kollo's operetta The Great Comteess . The first national success after the Second World War was Der Ring des Nibelungen , which the artistic director Albert Lippert himself staged from May 1960 to June 1961 with Günther Schneider-Siemssen as a set designer and which attracted attention throughout the Federal Republic of Germany.
Although the “Bremen style” was primarily drama-oriented during Kurt Huebner's directorship between 1962 and 1973, it also rubbed off more or less strongly on music theater, as demonstrated by modern and alternative productions and the slow change from the backdrop stage to the symbol stage. For the first time, the opera performances no longer corresponded exclusively to the will of the authors, but rather served the directors to bring their own personal views and ideas onto the stage. One of them was Götz Friedrich , who was very often a guest at the theater. In the second half of his directorship in particular, Huebner tried to recruit stage designers and outfitters for the music theater and was successful with Wilfried Minks , Karl-Ernst Herrmann and Manfred Miller . The theater viewers also changed their behavior. Up to now they had followed the performances calmly and uncritically, but now loud protests rose up against unpopular productions, as they were already common in acting. There was a clear break during the Huebner period with the operettas , which increasingly featured musicals such as My Fair Lady , Guys and Dolls , Show Boat and Küß mich, Kätchen! , the German version of Kiss Me, Kate were pushed out of the repertoire.
During the 1973/1974 season, the first under the new general manager Peter Stoltzenberg , the program for the first time included more music theater performances than theatrical productions: six opera premieres were compared to five in the drama division. Peter Brenner , who had committed himself to the principle of adherence to the work - he himself spoke of work justice - was able to be won as the new senior director of the music theater , which was experiencing a renaissance at that time. In Stoltzenberg's five years only five different directors directed operas. In addition to the usual repertoire, the repertoire featured only a few novelties. These included, for example, The Moon Rises over Ireland by British composer Nicholas Maw , directed by Hubertus Moeller , which was received very cautiously.
This division was of great importance under the artistic director Arno Wüstenhöfer. Together with Peter Brenner and the general music director Peter Schneider, he endeavored to produce performances of supra-regional charisma and for this reason engaged numerous well-known directors such as András Fricsay , Hans Korte , Horst Bonnet , Johannes Schaaf and Jean-Claude Auvray in addition to already prominent actors . They mostly staged timeless classics such as Aida , The Abduction from the Seraglio and Eugene Onegin , but they did not always have success. For example, Auvray saw himself in criticism for his Aida , because he had equated the figure of Radames with Giuseppe Verdi . Wüstenhöfer also promoted the next generation of directors and granted the young talents numerous premieres. He was also open to contemporary works such as the opera version of Georg Büchner's play composed by Gottfried von Eine , Dantons Tod . During his artistic directorship, the English composer Peter Maxwell Davies attracted attention, three operas of which were performed - one in the Theater am Goetheplatz, one in Concordia and one in the Church of Our Lady in the old town.
Tobias Richter had his artistic roots in music theater and therefore also focused on this branch in Bremen. Unlike many other artistic directors, he was also responsible as a director. However, his productions at the beginning of his directorship turned out to be failures, which led him to the declaration:
"If someone manages and stages a house, then he must not be its most important director, but has to fulfill an ensemble-related function with his work."
By choosing to put up with directors better than himself, he helped strengthen the division. For example, he hired internationally known directors for individual productions, as well as Jörg Immendorff as a set and costume designer. During the 1989/1990 season, when the theater on Goetheplatz was rebuilt, it was necessary to switch to outdoor venues. The largest performance of that time was Palestrina by Hans Pfitzner , which Richter put on in the Liebfrauenkirche and which was highly praised by the critics.
During Klaus Pierwoß 'artistic directorship, there were very solid opera performances. Two productions from the 1996/1997 season are considered to be some of the highlights of this period: Carmen staged by Karin Beier and Macbeth by David Mouchtar-Samorai . The latter received the Bavarian Theater Prize in 1997 in the opera category. In 1997/1998, however, Fidelio, staged by Johann Kresnik in the factory halls of the recently disbanded Bremer Vulkan, developed into a scandal . The director portrayed the figure of Florestan as a drinker addicted to alcohol, which aroused resentment and displeasure not only among numerous subscribers but also among members of the choir and orchestra. The conductor was also in opposition to Kresnik. Ultimately, however, the theater emerged stronger from the controversy - it had gained new audiences and was still in the public eye. At the end of the last season of Klaus Pierwoß, the specialist magazine Opernwelt named the Bremen Opera together with the Komische Oper Berlin as “ Opera House of the Year ”.
Under the general manager Hans-Joachim Frey, the main focus of the program was on the music theater. Well-known personalities like Katharina Wagner , Peter Ruzicka , Christian Ludwig Attersee and Ai Weiwei could be engaged as directors and outfitters for individual productions . On the Bremen Waterfront , the theater built the Bremen floating stage with 2,500 seats, the capacity of which was later increased. There they performed Der Fliegende Holländer by Richard Wagner in 2008 , Aida by Giuseppe Verdi in 2009 and Turandot by Giacomo Puccini in 2010 . However, the latter production, the last one by Frey in Bremen, recorded 8,000 fewer visitors than the previous ones and as a result a deficit of an estimated 300,000 euros. The city canceled its grants and the theater's board of directors was advised to withdraw from the project at least for 2011. Other possible uses are to be discussed.
Over the decades, the music theater at Theater Bremen was often at a high national level, which was mainly due to innovative productions as well as high-class general music directors and musical directors. Due to the comparatively small ensemble, the changed ambitions of the responsible artistic directors and the constantly critical financial situation, however, a long-term continuity rarely developed. In retrospect, the best-known singer at Theater Bremen was the world-famous soprano Montserrat Caballé , who was a member of the Bremen music theater ensemble for three seasons from 1959 to 1962.
play
Drama functions as the oldest division of Theater Bremen. Until 1917 only plays were performed. In the middle of the 1910s, officially in October 1915, the so-called “Nordländer cycle” was initiated. In the course of several seasons up to around 1919, numerous works by Scandinavian authors such as Henrik Ibsen , August Strindberg and Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson were performed in quick succession . During the time they were in charge Ichon and Wiegand were often responsible as directors, and Wiegand in particular also staged their own plays. These were received extremely positively by the visitors. At the beginning of the 1920s, a trend emerged that contradicted that of other German theaters: the drama was supposed to vividly show the psychological life of the roles and penetrate the surface. In this way the viewer should recognize himself in his own contradiction.
Kurt Hübner's artistic director from 1962 to 1973 is commonly referred to as the heyday of the Bremen theater . Born in Hamburg, he built up a very young ensemble, mostly unknown artists, and placed the focus of his work explicitly on acting. The directors Klaus Michael Grüber , Peter Stein and Rainer Werner Fassbinder , the drama director Peter Zadek , the senior theater director Rolf Becker and the set designer Wilfried Minks acted as influential personalities of that time . The latter refused to continue blindly to orientate himself in the design of the stage to the tendencies of the directors and developed his own theater rooms. Initially, this arbitrariness led to several conflicts with Huebner, until Huebner realized that this juxtaposition gave the pieces a special note. The performances were often very freely interpreted, modernized or even avant-garde and reflected the youthful, revolutionary attitude towards life of the 1960s. Within a short time, the Bremen theater advanced to become one of the most innovative theatrical stages in Europe, an experimental laboratory for the German theater scene and a pool of young talent. The term “Bremen style” was coined. Hübner took risks, tried out new ways of representation, played in different places within the city and in this way provoked and divided the audience. For both viewers and artists, the changes were completely new experiences that you first had to learn to deal with. The actors active at the time included Hannelore Hoger , Vadim Glowna , Jutta Lampe , Edith Clever , Sabine Andreas , Michael König , Werner Rehm and Bruno Ganz . The most notable and formative performance under Hübner was Die Räuber by Friedrich Schiller , directed by Peter Zadek , during the 1965/1966 season : the costumes were abstracted beyond recognition, a comic strip by Roy Lichtenstein served as a stage design and liters of theater blood were used . Hübner had to cope with a serious setback in June 1969 when Peter Stein left the theater with most of the ensemble, including Andreas, Clever, Lampe, Ganz, Rehm and König. This group had brought Goethe's Torquato Tasso to the stage in the previous season 1968/1969 and ideologically distanced themselves from Bremen during the guest performance at the Berlin Theatertreffen . The “Bremen style” ended in 1973 when Hübner's contract ended, and Hoger looked back on her commitment:
"You just do what you can - we had no idea that we would make theater history with it."
In contrast, in several interviews and with the well-known quote “The remarkable thing about the Bremen style was that it didn't exist at all”, Hübner relativized the term often used.
Günter Krämer , who favored and tried to implement an intellectual theater , acted as acting director under Tobias Richter . In 1988/1989 Kurt Huebner returned surprisingly, working as a director and staging The Merchant of Venice . At the end of the same season, Krämer left the theater due to personal differences with Richter and recruited numerous members of the ensemble. His successor was András Fricsay , who had high expectations not least because of his previous opera and drama productions. However, he was not able to fulfill this right away. As a colorful personality, he had several sensational works, which were also faced with several failures. He complained about organizational problems and left the Bremen theater together with Richter in 1992. Hansgünther Heyme turned out to be a temporary solution, who resigned as general director after only one season, but worked as theater director in the following twelve months and left the Hanseatic city with some well-received, solid works.
Klaus Pierwoß also focused his main attention on acting and created a talented ensemble. The first nationally recognized success of his directorship was The Threepenny Opera , directed by Andrej Woron, and Woyzeck, staged by Christina Friedrich in 1995/1996 with Max Hopp in the leading role, was one of the highlights of the years in Bremen. In addition, three productions by Johann Kresnik attracted a lot of attention. In the 1998/1999 season he performed The Last Days of Mankind in the dark and damp submarine bunker Valentin , a venue that was extremely unfamiliar to both the audience and the artists. The piece was received extremely positively by the critics. Five years later, on January 22, 2004, Kresnik staged his own work The Ten Commandments with Günther Kaufmann in the Friedenskirche . The Bremen Cathedral was initially planned as the venue, but those responsible withdrew the offer after massive protests from the population and through the tabloid media - because of allegedly obscene representations. The performances in the Friedenskirche did not go smoothly either: an attack with a Molotov cocktail was carried out on the house of a pastor of the church - although no direct connection to the theater work could be ascribed to it. In the 2006/2007 season, Kresnik used the Bremen freight yard as a performance location for the play America with a libretto by Christoph Klimke based on the fragment of the novel by Franz Kafka of the same name . During the rehearsals, however, a moat broke and several thousand liters of water flooded the scenery and also damaged the adjacent musician's studio. Kresnik made a virtue out of necessity and without further ado integrated the rubble into his stage design.
When Hans-Joachim Frey took over as artistic director, the focus of the house shifted towards music theater. The drama , which was initially led by a double team ( Marcel Klett and Christian Pade ), initially had a difficult time asserting itself, especially since Frey significantly reduced the ensemble to 18 actors. In the course of the 2007/2008 season, these problems were successfully resolved and, among other things, with Die Heiligen Johanna der Schlachthöfe directed by Frank-Patrick Steckels and Robert Schuster's staging of Bakchen by Raoul Schrott after the tragedy of Euripides , extremely high-quality artistic productions were realized . The taz judged Bakchen : "Better acting has not been seen in the Bremen theater for years." Nevertheless, the changes compared to Pierwoß's time were so massive that at the end of the season, in a survey by the trade magazine Die Deutsche Bühne, the Bremen theater was named "Annoyance of the year" was named by a critic. In particular, Christian Pade's productions found too little audience in Bremen. At the beginning of the 2008/2009 season, the in-house director announced that he would no longer be available at the end of the season. The sole management of the division passed to the dramaturge Marcel Klett. Frey's shift in emphasis at the expense of the theater was criticized. However, Marcel Klett succeeded in engaging a whole series of directors with the directors Robert Schuster, Hanna Rudolph , Alice Buddeberg , Sebastian Schug , Markus Heinzelmann , Herbert Fritsch and Volker Lösch , who mainly work in larger theaters, so the quality of the productions could be improved be preserved. Volker Lösch's Bremen production of Schiller's Die Räuber was chosen by the online magazine Nachtkritik.de as one of the ten best productions by German-language theaters in 2010. Aesthetically, the attempt was made to reopen the Bremen drama to trends in contemporary theater - with the exception of the productions by Frank-Patrick Steckel, which were obviously intended to represent a bridge for the Pierwoß audience.
The reactions to the first premieres of the 2010/2011 season with no directorship were mostly positive: “That was more than a season opener, it was a demonstration! The Bremen drama, long battered and often scolded, reports back triumphantly ”, wrote the Bremen-based Weserkurier about Robert Schuster's production of Shakespeare's comedy What you want . And the Deutschlandfunk 's verdict on Ibsen's An Enemy of the People by the same director : "With performances like this, the drama is back in the circle of important German theaters." The reactions to Herbert Fritsch's interpretation of the Nibelungs were particularly interesting . The production polarized the critics, strict rejection on the one hand (Weserkurier), euphoric approval on the other ( taz ).
Dance theater
The beginnings of dance theater in Bremen cannot be precisely determined. What is certain is that in the 1951/1952 season, Carl Orff's Carmina Burana in Herbert Junkers ' choreography was the first dance piece to be included in the repertoire. Initially, only ballet was performed and it was common to play musical comedies before each performance. This did not change until 1955, when Albert Libbert, at the beginning of his artistic directorship, engaged the then twenty-nine year old Renzo Raiss as ballet master and began to promote ballet more strongly. The ensemble was massively increased - among other things by the engagement of eight US-Americans - and now full-length choreographies were played.
In 1965, the artistic director Kurt Hübner hired the American Richard Adama, who had previously been engaged in Hanover , as ballet director. Adama concentrated on the classical genre and was quite successful with it. The majority of theater professionals, however, see the year 1968 as the actual start of the dance theater division, because at the beginning of the 1968/1969 season, the dancer and young choreographer Johann Kresnik Adama , who previously worked in Cologne, followed . Kresnik revolutionized dance theater in the Hanseatic city and staged numerous modern pieces with innovative choreographies, actions, themes and stage sets. While his first works were not very well received, he had great success with his later productions from 1970 - both nationally, nationally and internationally. The Bremen theater developed, similar to the drama division, into an artistic experimental laboratory that influenced dance theaters throughout Germany. From 1973 onwards, Kresnik's pieces premiered almost every year and were always premiered around January 20th. In 1978 the native Austrian accompanied the artistic director Peter Stoltzenberg to the theater of the city of Heidelberg and left Bremen. In the years that followed, the dance theater was largely determined by the new ballet directors Gerhard Bohner and Reinhild Hoffmann , who renamed the division from Ballet of the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen to Tanztheater Bremen in the early 1980s, following the example of the dance theaters in Darmstadt and Wuppertal and from the point of view that not a single ballet piece had been performed in Bremen since 1968. From the 1981/1982 season onwards, Hoffmann was the sole director. After five years her contract ran out and she was replaced by Heidrun Vielhauer and Rotraut de Neve at the beginning of the 1986/1987 season . However, these were unable to shape dance theater artistically and therefore increasingly saw themselves at the center of public criticism. For this reason, the sporadic return of Johann Kresnik was organized in 1989/1990, who staged the play Ulrike Meinhof in the first season of his renewed engagement and thus created one of the highlights of dance theater. The production received the Berlin Theater Prize , among others .
The Swiss Urs Dietrich has been the central figure of the Tanztheater Bremen since 1994 . In the 1996/1997 season he brought his choreography Do re mi fa so Latitod on stage, which the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung regarded as "one of the highlights of the dance season, not just in Germany". In 2000, after six years, Dietrich took over the management of the division from Susanne Linke . For the 2007/2008 season the Tanztheater Bremen entered into a cooperation with the Oldenburg dance company of the Oldenburg State Theater . Both divisions continue to work independently under the umbrella name of northwest , but they network their productions more closely. The respective leaders are now called choreographers in residence. The artists appear in both cities, productions are exchanged, guest performances are organized and joint productions are developed. For a long time the Concordia functioned as the main venue of the Tanztheater Bremen . Nowadays, the New Playhouse has taken this position. Occasionally, however, there are also performances on the stages of the other three houses.
MoKS
In 1976, the developed Federal Ministry of Education and Research , the initiative Mo dell try K artists receive and S chüler (Mok), young people are to be brought in over twenty West German cities to the theater on the basis thereof. In Bremen, too, the aim was to bring the performing arts closer to adolescents with the help of hands-on theater and new educational approaches. The state-funded project ended nationwide in 1982 - only in Bremen did the young theater remain as an institution within the education authority. Due to the closed trial stage took place in the same year renamed Mo dell theater K artists receive and S chüler and Mok has been connected as an independent theater at the Theater Bremen GmbH. Two years later, in addition to the participation and inclusion philosophy practiced to date, the audition theater appeared as a traditional form of theater and again two years later the MoKS was incorporated as a separate division.
The MoKS, which has an ensemble of four actors and is directed by Rebecca Hohmann , develops an average of five productions per year , which are mainly presented on their own stage, but also in the brewery cellar and in the Neues Schauspielhaus. The majority are in-house productions as well as adaptations of well-known children's and youth literature. In its function as a theater for children and young people, this section places particular emphasis on the interactivity of the audience. In this way, the young viewers are involved in the plot of the pieces, sometimes slip spontaneously into roles of the piece themselves and thus determine its course. The MoKS also has special offers for school classes and organizes theater groups, for example.
At the beginning of 2005, the MoKS established its own theater school with the young actors , a project that was unique in Germany to date. The aim is to get young people excited about theater work and to bring them closer to the basics of the same. Own small drama productions are developed, the figurative equipment of which the children in the workshops take on themselves in order to gain an insight into the complexity of a staging. The results are presented once a year as part of the so-called workshop festival.
Venues
Theater on Goetheplatz
The Theater am Goetheplatz, Goetheplatz No. 1–3 (often incorrectly called the Goethe Theater ) is the largest and the main venue of the Bremen Theater. It functions as the identical successor building to the old theater from 1913 on Goetheplatz east of the old town, which was destroyed in World War II. The new building began in 1948, and only two years later the house was reopened on August 27, 1950 with a performance of Goethe's Egmont . Nowadays it can hold up to 868 spectators. In addition to music theater, plays are staged on the stage, including the traditional Christmas fairy tale every year , as well as isolated dance theater productions.
A joint box office was set up in the New Playhouse. There is also access to the theater foyer.
Small house
The New Playhouse (NSH) was created as a result of long protests by the theater ensemble and the Bremen citizens against the lack of space and the threat of closure of the theater division. It is located right next to the theater on Goetheplatz and can be reached via a shared entrance from Ostertorsteinweg . On August 17, 1983, the Senate of the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen under Hans Koschnick approved eight million marks for the construction of a new venue on the basis of the plans presented. The foundation stone was laid just a few days later, i.e. before the start of the 1983/1984 season on the Milse property south-east of the Theater am Goetheplatz in the corner of Bleicherstrasse and Mozartstrasse. Within 14 months, a modern, simple theater building without any external decorations was constructed, which is connected to the theater on Goetheplatz in the north and the former brewery boiler hall in the south.
The opening of the New Playhouse was celebrated on November 2, 1984 with the performance of Carl Sternheim's Die Hose , staged by Torsten Fischer, which followed in the two following days as a completion of Sternheim's trilogy The Snob and 1913 .
The building was renovated during the 1999/2000 season. In the late summer of 2000 it was given a large barrel roof , for which the name “Pierwoßtonne”, after the then manager Klaus Pierwoß , quickly established itself in the people of Bremen . The height of the house doubled in the course of the construction work from 14 to 28 meters, and the southern rear of the building was extended by a nine-meter-wide porch, which accommodated offices and workshops, an expansion that also met with criticism. Through the conversion of the New Drama Theater is clearly created more space for the scenes, the rehearsal rooms and workshops, and under the new roof found a new fund and two large rehearsal stages, named after Kurt Hübner and Johann Kresnik , space.
The New Playhouse had 332 seats (229 in the stalls and 103 in the tier) and was the second largest house of the Bremen Theater. It is the main venue for the drama, but is also often used by the dance theater and with one production per season by the MoKS. To the east of the building is the St.-Pauli-Hof, which still belongs to the property of the theater and serves as a forecourt for the New Playhouse. In December 2011 it was announced that the acting director Michael Börgerding, who had been in office from 2012, intended to have the theater rebuilt again. The spectator situation should be more comfortable, the view of the stage improved and the stage technology should also be renewed. As a result, the number of seats was reduced to 200 from the 2012/2013 season . Kleines Haus was chosen as the new name of the stage .
Brewery cellar
The Brauhauskeller is the smallest venue of the Bremen Theater. It was opened in 1992 in the former boiler hall of the St. Pauli brewery on Bleicherstraße behind the New Playhouse. A staircase leads to the vaulted cellar, which is divided into two small auditoriums : the play and reading tubes. The former offers space for a maximum of 60 visitors as a space stage, while the latter can easily group the chairs around tables. There are no permanent seats, which is why the number varies. The small size creates an intense relationship between performers and viewers. The brewery cellar is used by the theater as a studio stage for the production of new pieces. But also solo evenings and readings complete the venue's program.
MoKS
The MoKS has seen numerous venue changes in the course of its history. In 1980 it moved into premises in the Weserburg on the Teerhof . In 1988, those responsible saw themselves forced to leave them because their capacities were needed for the New Museum Weserburg . The following years were therefore determined by several moves and provisional venues. For example, you were guest in an old gym, on a bus and in various classrooms. Finally, in August 1992, the MoKS also moved into the old brewery building, albeit on the first floor. There it has found its permanent and permanent seat, has a variable spatial stage and can accommodate a maximum of 99 spectators. The entrance to the MoKS is located directly opposite the entrance to the brewery cellar in a gate passage.
Awards
play
- 1966: Invitation to the Berlin Theatertreffen for the play Spring Awakening , staged by Peter Zadek
- 1968: Invitation to the Berlin Theatertreffen for the play Maß für Maß staged by Peter Zadek
- 1970: Invitation to the Berlin Theatertreffen for the play Torquato Tasso , staged by Peter Stein
- 1972: Invitation to the Berlin Theatertreffen for the Bremer Freiheit play staged by Rainer Werner Fassbinder
- 1974: Invitation to the Berlin Theatertreffen for the play The Last Volume staged by Klaus Michael Grüber
- 1979: Invitation to the Berlin Theatertreffen for the Antigonae play , staged by Ernst Wendt
- 1979: Invitation to the Berlin Theatertreffen for the play Maria Stuart , staged by Nicolas Brieger
- 1989: Invitation to the Berlin Theatertreffen for the play Der Poor Vetter , staged by Günter Krämer
- 1998: Invitation to the Duisburg Accents for the play Marat / Sade in the production by Andrej Woron
- 2011: Award for the production Die Räuber in the production by Volker Lösch as one of the ten best productions of 2010 by the online magazine nachtkritik.de
Musical theater
- 1997: " Bavarian Theater Prize " for the Macbeth opera
- 2007: “ Opera House of the Year ” of the opera world
- 2009: “European Tolerance Prize” from KulturForum Europa eV for the opera Gegen die Wand
Dance theater
- 1983: Invitation to the Berlin Theatertreffen for the dance piece Kings and Queens , staged by Reinhild Hoffmann
- 1984: Invitation to the Berlin Theatertreffen for the dance piece Callas , staged by Reinhild Hoffmann
- 1986: Invitation to the Berlin Theatertreffen for the dance piece Föhn , staged by Reinhild Hoffmann
- 1990: Invitation to the Berlin Theatertreffen for the dance piece Ulrike Meinhof staged by Johann Kresnik
- 1990: “ Berlin Theater Prize ” for the dance piece by Ulrike Meinhof and Johann Kresnik
- 1992: Invitation to the Berlin Theatertreffen for the dance piece Frida Kahlo staged by Johann Kresnik
- 1993: Invitation to the Berlin Theatertreffen for the dance piece Wendewut , staged by Johann Kresnik
MoKS
- 2004: Kurt Hübner Prize (together with Klaus Schumacher )
- 2011: ASSITEJ Prize for Young Actors
- 2012: Bremen Town Musicians Prize
General
- 1976: " German Critic Award " for George Tabori
- 1979: “ Theater of the Year ” from Theater heute
- 2007: "Prize of the German Theater Publishers" from the Association of German Stage and Media Publishers
- 2008: "Highlight 2008" of the Marketing Club Bremen
- 2008: " red dot design award "
- 2009: “Grenzgänger” cultural award from the Evangelical Church in Germany
Visitor numbers
| Playtime | Visitors | deviation |
|---|---|---|
| 2001/2002 | 218,000 | ? |
| 2002/2003 | 240,000 | + 10.1% |
| 2003/2004 | 200,000 | - 16.7% |
| 2004/2005 | 213,000 | + 6.5% |
| 2005/2006 | 199,000 | - 6.6% |
| 2006/2007 | 202,000 | + 1.5% |
| 2007/2008 | 217,000 | + 7.4% |
| 2008/2009 | 293,000 | + 35.0% |
| 2009/2010 | 165.276 | - 43.6% |
| 2010/2011 | 151,490 | - 8.3% |
| 2011/2012 | 155.242 | + 2.4% |
| 2012/2013 | 147.005 | - 5.3% |
| 2013/2014 | 166,720 | + 13.4% |
| 2014/2015 | 160,472 | - 3.9% |
| 2015/2016 | 146,500 | - 9% |
Directorship
- 01-1913-1940: Johannes Wiegand
- 02 - 1940–1943: Eduard Ichon
- 03-1943: Hans Tannert
- 04-1943-1944: Curt Gerdes
- 05-1949-1954: Willi Hanke
- 06 - 1954–1955: Conrad Heinemann (acting)
- 07-1955-1962: Albert Lippert
- 08 - 1962–1973: Kurt Hübner
- 09 - 1973–1978: Peter Stoltzenberg
- 10 - 1978–1985: Arno Wüstenhöfer
- 11 - 1985–1992: Tobias Richter
- 12 - 1992–1993: Hansgünther Heyme
- 13 - 1993–1994: Rolf Rempe (acting)
- 14 - 1994–2007: Klaus Pierwoß
- 15 - 2007–2010: Hans-Joachim Frey
- 16 - 2010–2012: Board of Directors ( Rebecca Hohmann , Marcel Klett , Patricia Stöckemann , Hans-Georg Wegner , Martin Wiebcke)
- 17 - 2012–2017: Michael Börgerding
literature
- Hermann Tardel (ed.): Studies on Bremen's theater history . Oldenburg 1945
- Hermann Tardel: On the history of theater in Bremen (1563-1763) In: Bremisches Jahrbuch 38, 1993 (1563-1736); Vol. 38, 1939, pp. 63-83 (1763-1783); Vol. 39, 1940, pp. 169-204 (1783-1791); Vol. 42, 1947, pp. 154-201 (1792-1796).
- Franz Reichert: Through my glasses . Österreichischer Bundesverlag , Vienna 1986, ISBN 3-215-06062-0
- Michael Mrukwa: The Bremen State Theater and the Bremen Playhouse from 1933-45 . Master's thesis, Bremen 1987
- Bremen Theater of the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen GmbH, Senator for Culture and Foreign Integration of the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen (publisher): 200 years of theater in Bremen . WMIT-Druck-u. Verlags GmbH, Bremen 1993, ISBN 3-929542-04-8
- Herbert Schwarzwälder : Das Große Bremen-Lexikon , Edition Temmen , Bremen 2003, ISBN 3-86108-693-X
- Lutz-Uwe Dünnwald (Ed.): Theater on Goetheplatz. Refurbishment 2003-2004 . Isensee GmbH, Oldenburg 2005
- Frank Schümann: Bremen Theater 1913–2007 . Schünemann Verlag , Bremen 2007, ISBN 978-3-7961-1903-3
- Klaus Pierwoß , Helmut Brade, Frank Schümann: Bremer Theater: Intendanz Klaus Pierwoß 1994 / 95–2006 / 07 , Schünemann Verlag, Bremen 2007, ISBN 978-3-7961-1895-1
Web links
- www.theaterbremen.de - Official website of Theater Bremen
- www.nordwest-tanz.de - Official website of the dance theater cooperation northwest
Individual evidence
- ↑ If Franz Reichert, also quoted by Schümann, notes a different job specification: "Wiegand, a former elementary school teacher, coming from the small middle class" (REICHERT, "Durch Meine Brille", p. 107), it remains to be noted that the general director of the North German Lloyd, Dr. Heinrich Wiegand (1855–1909), a relative of the theater director Johannes W., who was 19 years his junior.
- ↑ Schümann (2007), chapter "The new house is opened"
- ↑ a b Schümann (2007), chapter "Made a virtue out of necessity"
- ↑ a b Schümann (2007), chapter "A Poet Prince in Bremen"
- ↑ Schümann (2007), chapter "A nostalgic anniversary"
- ↑ a b c d e Schümann (2007), chapter "Red horses on the liberal island"
- ↑ Bremen Theater of the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen GmbH, Senator for Culture and the Integration of Foreigners of the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen (1993), page 45
- ↑ a b c Schümann (2007), chapter "Let's be a little bit of bon vivant"
- ↑ Schümann (2007), chapter "The music theater on the advance"
- ↑ Schümann (2007), chapter "Playhouse on the Temple Mount"
- ↑ Schümann (2007), chapter "'Emergency Coup' of Mimes"
- ↑ hhh (d. I. Hans Heinz Hahnl): A judgment against directorial volatility . In: Arbeiter-Zeitung , January 10, 1971, p. 4, top center.
- ↑ Schümann (2007), chapter "The Concordia as the first German spatial theater"
- ↑ a b Schümann (2007), chapter "Bremen theater as a 'highlight of the north'"
- ↑ “Bankrupt Queen instead of Glamor Queen” ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on radiobremen.de ( Radio Bremen ). Retrieved on March 12, 2010 (German)
- ^ Elisabeth Richter: "Glückloser Intendant" in dradio.de ( Deutschlandradio Kultur ). Retrieved on March 12, 2010 (German)
- ↑ “Theater is saniert” on taz.de ( the daily newspaper ), December 2, 2009. Accessed March 5, 2013
- ↑ http://www.taz.de/1/nord/bremen/artikel/1/erfalt-im-kerngeschaeft/
- ↑ http://senatspressestelle.bremen.de/sixcms/detail.php?id=44853
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i Deutscher Bühnenverein: Theater statistics for the respective seasons
- ↑ Iris Hetscher: Börgerding relies on contemporary theater . In: Weser-Kurier from August 12, 2010.
- ↑ Weser-Kurier of January 17, 2014.
- ↑ Schümann (2007), chapter "Richter and the focus on the opera"
- ^ "Seebühne des Bremer Theater vor dem Aus" in weser-kurier.de , August 11, 2010. Accessed March 5, 2013
- ↑ Schümann (2007), chapter "With Hübner came the departure"
- ↑ http://www.nachtkritik.de/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1458&Itemid=40
- ↑ http://www.nachtkritik.de/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4635%3Awas-ihr-wollt-mit-shakespeare-in-die-post-frey-aera-&catid=93&Itemid=19
- ↑ http://www.dradio.de/dlf/sendung/kulturheute/1474023/
- ↑ http://www.taz.de/!64776/
- ↑ [1] ( Page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ http://www.weser-kurier.de/bremen/kultur2_artikel,-Umbau-am-Theater-Bremen-beginnt-_arid,344472.html
- ↑ a b c d e f Statistical Yearbook 2016. (PDF) Statistisches Landesamt Bremen, Division 12 - Media work, information services, research data center, regional and city statistics, December 2016, accessed on November 21, 2017 (page 208).
- ↑ Statistisches Landesamt Bremen (Ed.): Statistical Yearbook 2017 . December 2017, ISSN 0942-9883 ( bremen.de [PDF]).
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Bremer shakespeare company | FRITZ Theater | Musical Theater Bremen | Packhaus Theater Bremen | Teatro Magico | Theater am Goetheplatz | Theater Bremen | Theater of the Assembly | Theater Interaktiwo | Lace-up theater | Waldau Theater
Former theater in Bremen
Astoria |
Bremen City Theater (1792) |
Bremen City Theater (1843) |
Concordia Theater Bremen |
Young Theater Bremen |
Kammerspiele Bremen |
Thalia Theater |
Madame Lothár Theater
Coordinates: 53 ° 4 ′ 18 ″ N , 8 ° 48 ′ 57 ″ E