Viennese children's theater

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The Vienna Children's Theater , founded by Sylvia Rotter in 1994, is the only theater in Vienna with an ensemble made up exclusively of children. The office is located in Taborstrasse 11b / 2 / 26c, in the 2nd district of Vienna. The workshop and rehearsal rooms are in the 3rd district, at Weyrgasse 7.

The theater has 1 production per year. Mostly classical theater pieces are rehearsed, which are then performed in schools and on “real” theater stages for adults. The theater is often invited to guest performances (in Austria and abroad). Theater courses for children are offered every semester, but they can only be attended after completing two internal workshops . The theater staff attach great importance to the fact that the children discover their linguistic and physical expression and develop it in a playful way, not the cramming of texts is the focus. Movement games , imagination-stimulating exercises, breathing techniques and memory training are on the program of the courses. The theater play should help the children to cope with their everyday problems and to become more self-confident. The productions are also recorded and schools are offered for educational work. The theater also hosts special projects such as B. Cultural mediation work with juvenile offenders or projects for schools with a focus.

The team

Sylvia Rotter, the director of the Vienna Children's Theater, is an actress herself, she completed her acting training in England at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts . She also played at the Royal National Theater , among others . In December 1999 she was elected chairwoman of the audience forum of the Bundestheater Holding GmbH. In this function she was active on the supervisory board of the federal theaters until December 2005 . Musical writer and director Di Trevis leads the master classes, Dominic Muldowney composes the music and Shona Morris , movement coach, works with the children on the movement of the roles they play.

The pieces listed so far

The former Vienna Children's Theater

The current Vienna Children's Theater, however, is not the first children's theater that was founded in Vienna. Also under the name Wiener Kindertheater, but not as the predecessor of today's institution, the Vienna-born dancer, choreographer and educator Hanna Berger directed an ensemble from 1945 to 1950. Berger's goal was to give children from poor backgrounds the opportunity to be creative and educated and to lead them to an uneducated, natural way of playing. Under the motto “Children play for children”, Berger brought out four large and several small productions in Viennese educational institutions and made guest appearances not only in Austria, but also in Berlin, Dresden and Budapest. The children's ensemble included u. a. the actors Christine Ostermayer and Klaus Löwitsch, who later became famous, but also the dancer and choreographer Gerhard Senft. From 1950 on, a children's theater group under the direction of Grete Reinhart also worked in the Kaiserpark in Neubaugasse under the name Wiener Kindertheater , which consisted of a children's play group and a children's dance group and held the performances on the park's open-air stage. The stage later joined forces with the Theater der Jugend . Grete Reinhart was not only the director, she also wrote plays and directed, she was also responsible for choreographies, sets, costumes and often performed with the children. And in spring 1951, as part of the first official Wiener Festwochen after the end of the war, Struwelpeter im Walde was staged by the children's dance group Reinhart.

literature

  • Andrea Amort : Foundation and end of the Vienna Children's Theater . In: Hanna Berger. Traces of a dancer in the resistance . Edited by the German Dance Archive Cologne . Brandstätter Verlag Vienna 2010, pp. 66–72. and a detailed chronicle from p. 160.
  • Sylvia Rotter and Dr. Brigitte Sindelar Curtain up for life! . 2010 Verlag für Schule und Wissenschaft GmbH.

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