5 January 2015

Attention! Volksbühne –
The Theatre, the City and Its Audience
A Congress in Light of Recent Events
15 and 16 June 2018, Akademie der Künste, Pariser Platz

After the discussion on ensemble theatre at the end of 2017 and current developments this season, the Akademie der Künste is again offering a platform for debate between theatre practitioners, audiences and urban society about expectations and wishes regarding a people's theatre in Germany's capital city.

For 25 years, the Volksbühne at Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz and the ensemble around Frank Castorf was one of the most influential theatres in the German-speaking world. The end of an era which began in 1992 with Ivan Nagel's visionary prophecy that the theatre would be "famous or dead in three years" ("in drei Jahren berühmt oder tot"), was followed by a widely disturbing interlude and yet ... all questions remain open. What does Volksbühne, its history and its aura signify? What does working at the Volksbühne mean and what does the Volksbühne mean to Berlin?

Statements, panels, public debates, among others, with Evelyn Annuß, Anna Bergmann, Amelie Deuflhard, Klaus Dobbrick, Klaus Dörr, Wolfgang Engler, Christian Grashof, Ulrich Khuon, Ulrike Köhler, Iris Laufenberg, Thomas Martin, Thomas Oberender, Frank Raddatz, Hannah Schopf, Esther Slevogt, Staub zu Glitzer, Kathrin Tiedemann and Klaus Völker
Welcome: Jeanine Meerapfel, President of the Akademie der Künste
Closing remarks: Nele Hertling, Director of the Performing Arts Section and Klaus Lederer, Senator for Culture and Europe
After the congress the Brandenburg Gate Foundation / Stiftung Brandenburger Tor invites participants in further exchange and to round off the event at the Max Liebermann Haus.

In cooperation with Deutscher Bühnenverein. With the support of the Senate Department for Culture and Europe

Event Information
Attention! Volksbühne – The Theatre, the City and Its Audience
A Congress in Light of Recent Events
Friday, 15 June 2018, 5 pm – 9:30 pm
Saturday, 16 June 2018, 10 am – 4 pm Akademie der Künste, Pariser Platz 4, 10117 Berlin Free admission
Press tickets: phone +49 (0)30 200 57-15 14 or e-mail presse@adk.de