Theater : Germany

The theaters. Germany’s theatrical landscape is above all defined by the country’s approximately 160 public theaters. These state and municipal theaters and some 50 attendant orchestras are complemented by roughly 190 private theaters and more than 30 festivals. There are also countless independent groups and amateur theaters. Instead of a single “theater capital” which attracts all the talent and all the attention - like Paris in France, for example - the Federal Republic has a wealth of theaters which are frequently in no way inferior to one other in terms of quality. This great diversity is traditional: In the 1 7th and 18th centuries nearly every regional sovereign took great pride in his own court theater and generally spared no expense to ensure that it was well equipped. In the 19th century, under the increasing influence of a prosperous middle class, many towns and cities made the theater a public institution.

Two factors have played a crucial role in shaping Germany’s theatrical landscape: the multipurpose theater and the repertory system. The multipurpose theater offers a broad range of dramatic arts, dance and music theater (operas, operettas, musicals, ballet) under one roof. These theaters perform a repertoire of 20 to 30 works in a given season. Each year approximately ten newly-staged productions enter the repertoire. The audience thus has an opportunity to become acquainted with many works of drama and music theater. Supplementing this range of offerings are the puppet theater as well as children’s and youth theater, which can be either another branch of the multipurpose theater or an independent operation altogether. The musical theaters, by contrast, perform one and the same piece month after month and year after year in what is termed en suite operations. Much the same is true especially of the smaller private theaters, which usually perform one piece en suite for several weeks and then go on to present a new production.

The artistic profile of a given theater is largely defined by its ensemble. Building and maintaining this en semble is consequently of particular importance for the theater. Especially the municipal and state theaters have a permanent staff of actors and actresses, singers and dancers.

The German theater makes its contribution to international communication in the cultural sphere and to European integration, above all with festivals such as “Theater der Welt” in Berlin or the “Bonner Biennale”. Exchanges of individual productions with theaters in other countries also figure importantly, however, as does collaboration with foreign actors and actresses, singers, dancers, theater managers, conductors, directors, designers, and other artists and craftsmen.