Matthias Lilienthal (born 21 December 1959) is a German dramaturge and theatre director.
Born in Berlin, Lilienthal grew up as the second of three children in Berlin-Neukölln. After graduating from the Berlin Evangelisches Gymnasium zum Grauen Kloster (1978), he studied history, German studies and theatre studies at the Free University of Berlin, but dropped out after ten years. [1]
In the mid-1980s, Lilienthal worked as a freelance journalist for the taz , the zitty and the Süddeutsche Zeitung ; he was then an assistant director to Achim Freyer at the Burgtheater in Vienna. From 1988 to 1991, under artistic director Frank Baumbauer dramaturge at the Theater Basel, where he worked with the then unknown Christoph Marthaler and tried to convince Baumbauer to bring Frank Castorf to Basel. [1] When Castorf made him an offer, [1] Lilienthal moved to the Volksbühne Berlin under Castorf's directorship and was chief dramaturge and deputy artistic director there until 1998. In 2002, he was programme director of the Theater der Welt festival in the Rhineland. He is also the initiator of the now internationally performed project X Wohnungen .
In September 2003, Lilienthal became artistic director and managing director of the Hebbel am Ufer (HAU) in Berlin. In August 2010, he announced that he would not extend his contract beyond 2012. Instead, he worked with young artists in Beirut for ten months from autumn 2012. [2] The jurors of the magazine Theater heute chose Hebbel am Ufer under Lilienthal's direction as the 2012 Theatre of the Year . [3] In 2014, he directed the international Theater der Welt festival in Mannheim. [3]
Since the 2015/2016 season, Lilienthal has been artistic director of the Munich Kammerspiele, succeeding Johan Simons. [4] For his directorship, he announced the inclusion of "free groups or certain aesthetics of the independent scene in the city theatre" and the cooperation with theatre collectives such as She She Pop , Rimini Protokoll and Gob Squad. [5]
Already before the start of the season, Lilienthal called for a worldwide tender for the art action Shabbyshabby Apartments: [6] [7] For four weeks in autumn 2015, 24 temporary huts and cottages stood in central locations in the city, preferably in places that stand for high rents such as Maximilianstraße. These accommodations could each be rented for 35 euros per person per night including breakfast in the theatre canteen in 2015. [8] The project was intended to draw attention to Munich's high rental prices. The action was organised by Benjamin Foerster-Baldenius and Axel Timm from the raumlaborberlin . [9] With Foerster-Baldenius, Lilienthal had already carried out a very similar project entitled Hotel Shabbyshabby at the Nationaltheater Mannheim in 2014.
In March 2018, it was announced that Lilienthal would not seek an extension for his contract at the Kammerspiele, which ran until 2020. [10] In summer 2019, however, critics named the Kammerspiele Theatre of the Year, Christopher Rüping 's Dionysos Stadt was best production, and other prizes were awarded for acting, stage design and young actors. The Berliner Theatertreffen invited productions of the Kammerspiele.
To mark the farewell of Lilienthal's directorship, the Olympiastadion in Munich was staged because of Corona. The Japanese director Toshiki Okada staged the Opening Ceremony, a one-hour performance with the Kammerspiele ensemble. The premiere on 11 July 2020 was "a spun-poetic piece" that alluded to this summer's Olympic Games in Japan, which were cancelled due to Corona, which most theatre critics from FAZ to Süddeutsche Zeitung to taz reviewed predominantly favourably. [11]
Lilienthal described as his most impressive theatre experience the production Winterreise im Olympiastadion by Klaus Michael Grüber, which he saw in Berlin in 1977, "300 spectators shivering in the Olympic Stadium at minus 20 degrees". [12] When asked about important teachers, Lilienthal named Frank Castorf, Christoph Marthaler, Frank Baumbauer, Wilfried Schulz and his friendship with Christoph Schlingensief. [12]
Lilienthal does not see theatre as an elitist space, but as a place for reflection and encounter that takes up the themes of a city and plays them back into the streets, [1] as a "laboratory for trying out urban living space" [13]
Lilienthal has been a member of the Academy of Arts, Berlin since 1999.
The Munich Kammerspiele is a state-funded German-language theater company based at the Schauspielhaus on Maximilianstrasse in the Bavarian capital. The company currently has three venues: the main stage of the theatre with two small stages, the workroom on Hildegardstrasse, and the Therese-Giehse-Halle in the rehearsal building on Falckenbergstrasse.
Edmund Nick was a German composer, conductor, and music writer.
Dieter Dorn is a German theatre director, also for the opera, the manager of the Münchner Kammerspiele from 1983 to 2001 and now manager of the Bavarian Staatsschauspiel.
The Hebbel am Ufer (HAU) is a theater and international performance center based in Berlin. It was founded by combining three theaters in Kreuzberg, Berlin: Hebbel Theater, Theater am Halleschen Ufer and Theater am Ufer.
Jeanette Spassova is a Bulgarian-German actress.
Angela Richter is a German–Croatian theatre director and author.
Hans-Michael Rehberg was a German actor.
Proton Theatre is an independent company based in Hungary. It was founded in 2009 and is operating according to the production concept shaped by Kornél Mundruczó and Dóra Büki. The virtual artistic group is organized around the director's independent productions.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to Munich:
Stefan Lenhart is a German artist based in Munich. His work is a mixture of sculpture, large scale installations and painting, often incorporating historical elements.
The Münchner Lach- und Schießgesellschaft is a German political kabarett that runs at its own theatre in Schwabing, Munich. It was founded in 1956 by journalist Sammy Drechsel and comedian Dieter Hildebrandt, who were soon joined by Klaus Peter Schreiner. Walter Kabel was responsible for the show's music from 1956 to 1972, which included his own compositions.
Michaela Steiger is a German actress for theatre, film and television. Steiger was born in Garmisch-Partenkirchen and completed her acting training in New York with Susan Batson and Herbert Berghof. Her first permanent engagement was in Theater Basel where she worked under the direction of Frank Baumbauer with the directors Jossi Wieler, Andreas Kriegenburg, Frank Castorf and Barbara Frey. Then she moved to the Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus from 1993 to 1996. She became a member of the ensemble of the Schaubühne in Berlin under director Thomas Ostermeier. Steiger had numerous guest engagements at the Hamburger Schauspielhaus, Schauspiel Frankfurt, Maxim Gorki Theater Berlin, Schauspielhaus Zürich and the Munich Kammerspiele. From 2011 to 2016 she was a member of the ensemble at the Residenztheater in Munich, where she worked with directors Martin Kušej, Katrine Wiedemann, Daniela Löffner and Bernhard Mikeska, among others. She has been associated with the Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus since the 2016/17 season. She is also involved in various film and television productions.
André Bücker is a German theatre director and régisseur.
Ralph Hammerthaler is a German writer.
MaerzMusik is a festival of the Berliner Festspiele and has been held annually since 2002 in March at the Haus der Berliner Festspiele and other venues. It is the successor festival to the Musik-Biennale Berlin and is considered one of the most important festivals for Neue Musik in Germany. The artistic director of MaerzMusik is Kamila Metwaly.
The Hebbel-Theater is a historic theatre building for plays in Berlin-Kreuzberg, Germany. It has been a venue of the company Hebbel am Ufer (HAU) from 2003.
Annemie Vanackere is a Belgian festival curator and theatre director. Since 2012, she has been the artistic director and managing director of the Hebbel am Ufer Theatre in Berlin.
Gerhard Wolfram was a German dramaturge, theatre director and theatre artistic director.
Tanz im August is an annual festival for contemporary dance in Berlin. It was founded by Nele Hertling in West Berlin in 1988, and is now presented by the Hebbel am Ufer (HAU) theatre company on various stages in Berlin. It presents companies from all over the world with their new choreography, aesthetics and formats, new projects by Berlin artists, collaboration with international guests, and co-production for world premieres and German premieres. Virve Sutinen has been artistic director from 2014.
Bettina Masuch is a German dramaturg and theatre director as well as artistic director at the Festspielhaus St. Pölten.