Producer
Leopold Hoesch
Director
Dag Freyer
Producer
Nicholas von Brauchitsch
Genre
Culture
Broadcaster
ZDFtheaterkanal / 3sat / ZDFdokukanal
Length
1 x 30'
Editor
André Hammesfahr
Year
2005
Theatrescapes
Theater Altenburg-Gera

The Altenburg-Gera Theatre emerged in 1995 from the merger of the Gera City Theatre and the Altenburg State Theatre. Due to the increasingly tight budgetary situation for financing the theatres from municipal and state funds, this theatre series in Eastern Thuringia came about. Since then, the joint ensemble, orchestra and management have been commuting back and forth between the cities, which are about 40 km apart.

Both houses can look back on a long theatre tradition. In Gera, the "New Comedy House" was inaugurated as early as 1683, at the beginning of the 20th century Hans Otto and Bernard Minetti were in the ensemble, and after the war Leander Haußmann played alongside Rolf Hoppe and Frank Castorf directed at the Gera Theatre. Musical theatre in particular was cultivated in the skat town of Altenburg; for example, Peter Konwitschny staged a "Freischütz" in the 1980s that is remembered as spectacular.

Esther Schweins introduces Thuringia's largest multi-genre theatre, sheds light on the effects of the theatre merger and unexpectedly meets her doppelganger on the puppet theatre stage. The Altenburg writer Ingo Schulze has written a precise panorama of the East German post-reunification world with his novel "Simple Stories", set in his home town, and tells us in conversation how he experienced Altenburg's theatre days. And "fusion director" Michael Schindhelm gives an insight into how turbulent the unification of the two theatres into the current four-section theatre was.

Theatrescapes: Theatre Altenburg-Gera

The Altenburg-Gera Theatre emerged in 1995 from the merger of the Gera City Theatre and the Altenburg State Theatre. Due to the increasingly tight budgetary situation for financing the theatres from municipal and state funds, this theatre series in Eastern Thuringia came about. Since then, the joint ensemble, orchestra and management have been commuting back and forth between the cities, which are about 40 km apart.

More films