The Freies Theaterhaus Frankfurt in downtown Frankfurt is a production and performance venue for the Frankfurt children's and youth theater scene. The program is developed in collaboration with artists and shaped by the two shareholder ensembles (Theaterhaus Ensemble and TheaterGrueneSosse) and approximately 10 permanent guest ensembles. Through productions and guest performances, the theater house is connected regionally and internationally. Every year, international groups are hosted as part of the "Starke Stücke" festival for young audiences.
The program is aimed at childcare facilities, schools, and families. With two stages seating 60 to 110 people, approximately 280 performances are held annually for audiences aged 2 and above. Additionally, there are artistic outreach programs, training courses for educators, participation and encounter formats, and the artistic language promotion program called "ErzählZeit Frankfurt".
Lively theatre that sets things in motion through curiosity and exploratory zeal – that’s the Hessian Theatre Marburg. Every season offers more than eleven new theatre productions at five venues, at least five Youth Theatre premieres for all age groups, and a comprehensive repertoire: from classical to contemporary theatre, and from comedies and musical productions to co-productions and guest performances. Co-operation between Hessian Theatre Marburg and HTA has been steadily developed since 2010. Graduation productions by Theatre Directing and Applied Theatre Studies students are thus included in the programme and HTA students are engaged for on-going productions or involved in the conceptual development of dramatic works. In the 2018/19 season, the Marburg theatre’s two artistic directors Eva Lange and Carola Unser are starting a new co-operation with the Stage Design programme at the Offenbach University of Art and Design in the Das Stück zur Zeit (play for our times) project. Furthermore, actors from the Hessian Theatre Marburg ensemble have regularly contributed to productions by HTA students.
The Hessian State Theatre Wiesbaden is one of the most successful theatres in the German speakding countries, and with more than 300,000 tickets sold, it is one of the best visited theatres in Germany. More than 50 productions are shown in one season at the four stages of the Hessian State Theatre. In addition there are guest performances and Festivals such as the Internationale Maifestspiele and the Wiesbaden Biennale. Artistic director Uwe Eric Laufenberg makes use of the full scope offered by a modern multi-disciplinary venue: an outstanding opera programme with new productions of Wiesbaden classics and exciting new productions presented by a top ensemble and international guests. The visitors can experience exciting premieres – including world premieres and German-language premieres. Under the direction of Tim Plegge, the Hessian State Ballet is a successful centre for dance and performance in Darmstadt and Wiesbaden. The young conductor Patrick Lange is General Music Director and Director of the Hessisches Staatsorchester Wiesbaden since 2017/18. The Junge Staatsmusical acts under a new name, but continues to be a talent factory for young musical performers, and makes Theater for a young audience with the Junge Staatstheater JUST.
Künstlerhaus Mousonturm opened in 1988 as one of the first independent production houses in Germany and is today recognised internationally as one of the most important of its kind. With a theatre, two studio spaces, rehearsal stages and studios, artists’ accommodation and stage workshops, plus its links with the Tanzplattform Rhein-Main and Frankfurt LAB, it offers outstanding production and performance facilities. The recurring exchanges with creative artists and collectives working in the contemporary independent sector in German-speaking, European and extra-European territories are at the heart of our programming and production work, which also includes Germany’s next generation of artists, particularly from the sphere of the Hessian Theatre Academy. Contemporary dance, choreography, performance and innovative forms of international theatre from beyond the German-speaking area are complemented with concerts, contemporary music and visual art projects, films, installations and interventions in the city and its metropolitan region.
Oper Frankfurt is one of Europe’s most important opera houses. Under the artistic direction of Bernd Loebe since 2002, it has been named Opera House of the Year by journals on many occasions. Oper Frankfurt’s diverse repertoire presents works from four centuries, staged by the leading directors of our time. Top-level casts ensure an above-average standard of vocal and dramatic performance.
Schauspiel Frankfurt is the largest spoken theatre in the Rhine-Main region and enjoys nationwide significance and acclaim. Artistic Director Anselm Weber and his deputy and chief dramatic adviser Marion Tiedtke took over the management of the house at the beginning of the 2017/18 season.
Spread over four venues – the Schauspielhaus, Kammerspiele, Box and Bockenheimer Depot – renowned directors such as Ulrich Rasche, Luk Perceval, Andreas Kriegenburg, Roger Vontobel, Jan-Christoph Gockel and David Bösch bring both classical and contemporary pieces by Lutz Hübner and Sarah Nemitz, Ewald Palmetshofer, Marius von Mayenburg or Konstantin Küspert to the stage. In addition to the large-scale cultural-education project All Our Futures, a three-year endeavour in which 180 young people are questioning and drafting models of co-existence, the offer for young people also includes the performances, workshops and discussions of the Junges Schauspiel Frankfurt initiative. As part of the Studio Year for Drama introduced in 2017 in co-operation with HTA, eight acting students from the HfMDK will complete their third year of training at Schauspiel Frankfurt.
Darmstadt State Theatre is a multi-disciplinary venue presenting music theatre, dance theatre, plays and concerts. Under the artistic direction of Karsten Wiegand, around 550 employees working on stage and behind the scenes fill the theatre’s programme with life. Up to 700 events take place each season, including around 30 premieres of in-house productions and more than thirty concerts as well as guest productions and performances by co-operation partners, including works coproduced with Hessian Theatre Academy.
With around 500 permanent employees, Kassel State Theatre understands itself as a modern theatre that is obligated to tradition and modernity in equal measure. The large annual offering comprises thirty new productions in the fields of music theatre, drama, dance theatre and children’s and youth theatre, as well as symphony, Sunday, chamber, family, student and special concerts. There is also a comprehensive theatre and concert education programme for children and young people.
Founded as a ‘monument of civil community spirit’, Giessen Municipal Theatre presents three branches of the arts in a theatre with a national reach. Its two stages offer a diverse repertoire of opera, musical and operetta, classical and contemporary theatre, and modern dance theatre. Additional focus points include a varied concert programme and numerous children’s and youth theatre productions for various age groups that can be seen all year round. The programme is enhanced by the juxtaposition of well-known and unknown works, excavations and new discoveries, major repertoire pieces and premieres, and by readings, discussion rounds and lots more besides. In addition to the main theatre, which has around 580 seats, there is also a second venue – the 99-seat taT studio stage at Berliner Platz. Graduation projects by students from the Frankfurt University of Music and Performing Arts, from the Offenbach University of Art and Design and from the Institute of Applied Theatre Studies are regularly staged at Giessen Municipal Theatre. Furthermore, graduates of these universities often now work at the theatre as directors, stage and costume designers, choreographers, and light, sound and video designers.
Located at the centre of the Rhine-Main region, the Rüsselsheim Theatre is a guest-performance venue presenting national and international productions in a programme that includes youth theatre, jazz, stand-up and cabaret, musical and show, opera and operetta, concerts and classical music, drama and comedy, and ballet and dance. Particular attention is given to the area of youth theatre and the more than fourty events every year, and the Youth Ensemble at Rüsselsheim Theatre. The theatre is a partner and venue of the Starke Stücke (Strong Pieces) theatre festival and the theatre house sechzig90, an association of professional actors and directors. The Cinema Concetta Foundation’s Ruesselsheim Film Days festival, an annual showcase of satirical short films, has acquired national significance. Affiliation with the HTA includes a music theatre co-operation with the Frankfurt University of Music and Performing Arts.
The Baden State Theatre in Karlsruhe is one of the largest multi-disciplinary theatres with four permanent performance venues where regular opera, ballet and drama ensembles as well the Badische Staatskapelle orchestra perform. In 2011, the theatre’s General Artistic Director Peter Spuhler founded the Junges Staatstheater (a youth theatre programme) as a new section for people aged two to sixteen, and the Volkstheater (people’s theatre), which sees participative activities come together on all stages. The theatre also organises numerous festivals, including the Prémieres festival in rotation with Strasbourg. Other artistic priorities include the development of a contemporary theatre vocabulary, international networking (above all with neighbouring France) and the intercultural opening up of the centre. Alongside Mainz and Heidelberg, the Baden State Theatre in Karlsruhe is one of three non-Hessian partner theatres in the HTA.
The State Theatre of Mainz, whose history reaches back to the first half of the 19th century, regularly uses four performance venues: in addition to the main and small theatres, also the Glashaus and U17. These stages are used for a wide-ranging repertoire of classical works and premieres in the fields of music theatre, ballet, drama, and children’s and youth theatre. The theatre productions tackle socially relevant and contemporary themes and thus take an inquisitive look at society. The State Theatre of Mainz is one of HTA’s three supra-regional partner theatres and in this context also co-produces the graduation productions of Theatre Directing students, for example.
The Theatre and Orchestra Heidelberg stands among other things for a top-level ensemble, continuous author promotion, international co-operations and a major interest in contemporary forms of theatre. Many important careers have begun at this five-section venue (opera, drama, dance, youth theatre and concerts), which is under the artistic direction of Holger Schultze. The theatre organises four major festivals, including the famous Heidelberger Stückemarkt, the most important promotional festival for playwrights in the German-speaking region. The co-operation with HTA covers actor engagements (during and beyond their period of practical training), student production co-operations relating to the Directing in Theatre programme and support for special projects and festivals. The theatre is one of HTA’s three supra-regional partner theatres.
In a pilot project initially scheduled to run for three years, the Hessian Theatre Academy will be cooperating with three associations from the state's independent scenes. Starting in January 2020, the Theater neben dem Turm in Marburg, among others, will be accepted as an associated member of the study and production association.
Theater neben dem Turm (TNT) is located in a former gasworks on the Afföllerwiesen in Marburg an der Lahn. Founded as a collective in 1983, the TNT is not an institution that curates or is only an organiser. All those involved take on some responsibility for spaces, environments and people. TNT does not want to be a sacred temple of theater-internal discourses, but opens itself to all social groups, questions, discourses and realities in Marburg and beyond. In addition to theatre and performances, dance, installations, audio walks and site-specific works take place here. The TNT team realises its own productions, projects with children and young people, organises festivals with the Hessian performance scene and co-produces. As the only Hessian research residence of the federal network, it offers a place for the programme “Flausen young artists in residence”.
In a pilot project initially scheduled to run for three years, the Hessian Theatre Academy will be cooperating with three associations from the state's independent scenes. Starting in January 2020, studioNAXOS in Frankfurt, among others, will become an associate member of the study and production association.
studioNAXOS was created in 2014 from the merger of students from the Hessian Theatre Academy in response to the increasing precarisation of the working and living areas of artists in Frankfurt and Hesse. The aim was and is to establish a place that enables joint work beyond and independent of traditional municipal theatre structures and open-scene hype under professional conditions and with a long-term and self-determined perspective. In cooperation with the Theater Willy Praml, the Naxoshalle was founded as a venue for this purpose, and thanks to the institutional support of Frankfurt’s cultural office, the intellectual and material basis for the formation of new developments in the performing arts and the creation of a loose ensemble was achieved.
ID_Frankfurt - Independent Dance and Performance e. V.
(associate member)
In a pilot project initially scheduled to run for three years, the Hessian Theatre Academy will be cooperating with three associations from the state's independent scenes. Starting in January 2020, ID_Frankfurt e. V., among others, will become an associate member of the study and production association.
ID_Frankfurt e. V. is a non-profit association of freelance artists, theorists and mediators in choreography and performance who work in Frankfurt am Main and the surrounding area. The association was founded in 2009 to improve the working situation and self-organisation of freelance dancers, choreographers, performance artists and theatre professionals. In addition to its commitment to cultural policy and representing the interests of freelance performance and dance professionals, ID_Frankfurt has itself conceived numerous formats and facilities such as studios, performance platforms, meeting places and workshops in recent years and - where necessary - acquired funds for their realisation. Collaborations exist with the Museum für Angewandte Kunst Frankfurt, Cresc Biennale for Modern Music Frankfurt Rhein/Main, Frankfurt LAB, and Künstlerhaus Mousonturm, among others.
In an initial three-year pilot project, the Hessian Theatre Academy will cooperate with another stage from 2021: the Nationaltheater Mannheim. In addition to the three members already associated in 2020 (studioNAXOS, Theater neben dem Turm and ID_Frankfurt), we are delighted about the new member.
The Nationaltheater Mannheim is one of the largest and oldest municipal repertory theatres in Germany. In particular, the work of Schiller and the connection to Mozart continue to shape the work at the NTM to this day. Numerous world premieres and German premieres in the four sections of opera, drama, dance and young national theatre, as well as the Mannheimer Bürgerbühne, founded in 2012 and now the Mannheimer Stadtensemble, are exemplary proof of the innovative and contemporary continuation of the tradition. Outstanding artistic achievements make the NTM the flagship of the city of Mannheim and one of the most important stages in Germany.
