Azeret Koua

Azeret Koua (she/her; *1993 in Detroit, Michigan) grew up as a third-culture kid in the USA, Germany, and China. She initially studied law, until—much to the disappointment of her Ivorian and African-American parents- she got hooked on theater. After dropping out of law school, she went through a quarter-life crisis and got a degree in theater studies and art history from the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. During this time, she directed, assisted, and continuously advocated for inclusive thinking and action in theater.

After university, she assisted at Schauspiel Dortmund and the Residenztheater. In the 2024/25 and 2025/26 seasons, she is part of the artistic leadership and serves as the lead director at Theaterhaus Jena. Her first production at Theaterhaus Jena, rhapsody, got her invited to the Radikal Jung Festival at the Volkstheater Munich in 2025 and put her on the list as one of the best newcomer artists of the 2025/26 season by Patrick Wildermann (Der Tagesspiegel) in Theater Heute.

As a director, she passionately and humorously explores points of societal friction. She is especially interested in narratives and perspectives that have been previously overlooked or misrepresented. Her directorial work is strongly influenced by pop culture, music, and surrealism. Many of her works revolve around the search for “freedom”—freedom from systems, norms, and sometimes from oneself. As a director, she implements quotas in every production: at least one marginalized person onstage and one behind the scenes, not counting herself. She fundamentally rejects the tokenization and the instrumentalization of marginalized people/groups as part of her theater work.

Fun fact: Her parents are no longer disappointed in her. Hallelujah.