Theaterhaus Jena

When, in 1921, the city of Jena offered the theater to Ernst Hardt, General Director of the DNT Weimar, he accepted on the condition that the renovation of the theater would take place under his influence. He proposed commissioning Walter Gropius with the project.

Due to a lack of funds, the renovation of 1921/22 was limited to the areas accessible to the public: the façade, the cloakrooms, the staircases leading to the balcony, the foyer, and the auditorium. On September 24, 1922, the new Jena Municipal Theater was opened with Goethe’s “Torquato Tasso.”

The Gropius Theater met with strong opposition from the conservative faction of the city council. Nevertheless, the unpopular building remained untouched throughout the National Socialist era.

Immediately after the Second World War, the Hamburg-born theater director John Biermann leased the Jena Municipal Theater, founded a three-branch theater, and reopened the house on September 13, 1945, with Grillparzer’s “Sappho.” Like so many in that period, his three-branch theater was remarkably successful. However, in his lease agreement, he also committed to having the Municipal Theater renovated at his own expense. Under the direction of architect Ernst Kühne, the renovation was planned in three construction phases:

1. Remodeling and expansion of the auditorium with side galleries

2. Complete redesign of the stage house

3. Addition of a box office hall with a foyer above it

The first construction phase, delayed by significant building difficulties, was not completed until Easter 1948. The stage house had to remain untouched, and the neoclassical box office hall was not built. On March 28, 1948, the Jena Municipal Theater reopened with Schiller’s “Maria Stuart.” All visible traces of the Gropius Theater had been erased. John Biermann was financially ruined by the construction and soon had his concession revoked.

In January 1987, the city council had the dilapidated auditorium of the theater demolished—partly, at least, with the ulterior motive of emphasizing the desire for a new theater building. Without success. The truncated stage house was closed by the building authorities, and the Municipal Theater itself moved into the Capitol Cinema.

In 1989, after the reunification, the founding of the “Theater auf der Hinterbühne” brought the ruined theater back into use, and it subsequently became an important venue for independent theater groups.

In 1990, the then cultural commissioner Klaus Hattenbach—the first freely elected cultural commissioner of the city—was tasked by the city council with reconstructing the theater and, above all, with founding its own ensemble. He contacted the renowned Ernst Busch Acting School in Berlin and was able to convince a group of young acting graduates to establish a drama ensemble in the ruins of the Jena theater.

Together with directors Horst-J. Lonius and Sven Schlötcke (both lecturers at the school), they founded Theaterhaus Jena, with funding provided on a public employment program (ABM) basis. The young collective of artists, many of whom had been active in the political changes of the Wende, sought not only to develop a new stage language but also to create working structures for the promotion of art beyond the “normal” municipal theater framework.

On November 29, 1991, the new Theaterhaus Jena was inaugurated with the grand theater night “WüsteGegenZeit.” From that point on, the theater was mainly attended by a young, open-minded audience. Both major German daily newspapers and the specialist press quickly took notice of the small theater.

With the support of important German theater figures such as Heiner Müller, Peter Zadek, Frank Castorf, and many others, it was possible on July 1, 1993, to convert the previously city-run THEATERHAUS JENA into a non-profit limited liability company (gGmbH), whose shareholders were exclusively ensemble members. This step prevented the dissolution of the ensemble when the ABM funding period ended.

From September 1998 to April 1999, the Theaterhaus ruin underwent a much-needed renovation. During the renovation, the ensemble found new performance venues in and around Jena.

With the turn of the millennium, a new artistic ensemble, consisting of eight actors and two directors, took over the theater, with Claudia Bauer serving as the chief director. In October 2000, the youth theater club was founded at Theaterhaus Jena, which has since meaningfully complemented the program with productions by young people for young audiences. In November 2001, Theaterhaus Jena celebrated its 10th anniversary under the groundbreaking motto “Triumph of the Province.”

From 2011 to 2018, the fourth leadership team, consisting of director Moritz Schönecker, costume designer Veronika Bleffert, and set designer Benjamin Schönecker, was responsible for the artistic direction of the theater. They saw themselves “as a team of strong individual characters who, instead of competing or operating on a grassroots-democratic basis, advocate for a functional coexistence”—a principle they maintained as their working method throughout their time in Jena until 2018.

In their artistic work, Moritz Schönecker and his team explored not only cross-disciplinary and cross-genre forms of performance but also advanced the internationalization of artists associated with Theaterhaus. One of the recurring themes in their work was being a stranger in a new homeland and its consequences for the individual and society. They also promoted discursive formats in the repertoire by opening the theater to the city, providing a platform for research centers and institutions that engage with social conditions in various ways.

The highlight of their work, which ended in 2018 after seven years at Theaterhaus Jena, was the festival “Come Quick Danger; Multiperspective Positions on the State of the Nation,” culminating in the world premiere of “Titanic” by Marcos Diaz and Rogelio Orizondo, staged as a summer spectacle for the opening of the Kulturarena Jena.

In October 2014, after two years of construction, a “functional annex” was added to the theater. With its workshops, storage and office spaces, and above all its comfortable rehearsal stage, it significantly improved the theater’s work and rehearsal processes.

With the 2018/19 season, there was another complete change in the artistic team at Theaterhaus Jena. The shareholders’ meeting of Theaterhaus Jena gGmbH handed over the artistic direction of the house to the Dutch theater collective Wunderbaum.

Wunderbaum, the performer, actress, and director Lizzy Timmers, the theater duo hashtagmonike, and the Theaterhaus acting ensemble successfully shaped the repertoire and profile of Theaterhaus Jena for four seasons—despite the pandemic. In 2022, Wunderbaum was awarded the Martin Linzer Theater Prize for its artistic work at Theaterhaus Jena. With “Der Clowns-Kongress”, a co-production between Wunderbaum, Theater Rotterdam, and Theaterhaus Jena, Wunderbaum and the Theaterhaus ensemble toured extensively and successfully throughout the Netherlands and Belgium. Many other Theaterhaus productions were also presented in the Netherlands.

At the end of the 2021/22 season, Wunderbaum returned to Rotterdam, and Lizzy Timmers, together with Maarten van Otterdijk and supported by the ensemble council, took over the artistic leadership of the theater for two seasons.

With the 2022/23 season, the Theaterhaus ensemble was expanded by four new performers. Together with their fellow actors, they formed the Ensemble Council to work with Lizzy Timmers and Maarten van Otterdijk, as artistic directors, to refine the artistic profile of the theater and experiment with new working and leadership structures.

In October 2023, Theaterhaus Jena was awarded the Federal Theater Prize in the category of City Theaters and Regional Stages.

In 2024, Theaterhaus Jena was invited to the Theatertreffen of the Berlin Festival with the production “Die Hundekot-Attacke”, a co-production with the Dutch theater collective Wunderbaum, which took place from May 2–19, 2024, in Berlin. In addition, “Die Hundekot-Attacke” was invited to the Heidelberger Stückemarkt, the author team behind “Hundekot-Attacken” received the 3sat Theater Prize, and Nikita Buldyrski was awarded the Alfred Kerr Actor Prize. In the critics’ survey of Theater heute 2024, the Theaterhaus Jena ensemble received 26 mentions.

In June 2024, Yevgen Bondarskyy, who, together with Hannah Baumann and Leon Pfammemüller, produced “Blut” at Theaterhaus Jena, was awarded the Dr. Otto Kasten Prize 2024.

At the conclusion of its work at the theater, the Ensemble Council self-published the book “How to Ensemble-Rat? Artistically Co-Determined Work and the Ensemble Council Model at Theaterhaus Jena (2021–2024)” and ended its highly successful tenure in Jena with the summer theater production “Carol. Shakespeare in Jena” for the opening of the Kulturarena Jena 2024.

At the beginning of the 2024/25 season, Azeret Koua, Céline Karow, Daniele Szeredy, Josef Bäcker, and Lukas Pergande (also Artistic Managing Director) took over the artistic leadership of Theaterhaus Jena—marking the sixth complete change in the theater’s artistic team. Even more than their predecessors, the five focus their theater work on discursive formats, heterogeneous perspectives, and collaboration with actors from the city’s civil society.

They engaged the city with the diverse mini-festival “Our House – Open Days”, and opened the season with the world premiere of “rhapsody” (directed by Azeret Koua).