The THEATER AN DER PARKAUE presents repertoire-theatre for children and young people. It is subsidised by the state Berlin which makes it the only state-theatre for a young audience in Germany. In its 56th season more than 90 staff members work in front of, on and behind the three stages. The theatre which was built in 1912 is led by the artistic director Kay Wuschek. The chief director Sascha Bunge offers with 19 actors and actresses and a great number of artistic guests stories from overseas, myths from long time ago, popular fairytales, newly translated texts, alltime-favourite plays, new developments and also classical plays from 2000 years of literature.
Concerning the contents, the aesthetic realisation and presentation forms, the THEATER AN DER PARKAUE wants to discover the variety of nowaday’s theatre. Besides the distinctive stress on theatre which is based on “classic” acting and literature, we are interested both in performance-like presentations and projects in which theatre emerges from an exchange of different forms of art and media. This interest is especially important for our work with children and teenagers within various projects.
Kay Wuschek – born in 1963 – grew up in Aschersleben and Leipzig.
He was a competitive athlete before he became a galvaniser. Degree in Theatre
and Cultural Communication Studies at the Humboldt-University in Berlin. He
worked as dramaturg at the bat theatre Berlin, Mecklenburgisches Staatstheater
Schwerin, Freie Kammerspiele Magdeburg, Faust-Ensemble GmbH Hannover (Peter
Stein), Dramatic Theatre Plodiv/Bulgaria, Thalia Theater Halle and at Theater
Aachen.
Apart from his job as a dramaturg, Kay Wuschek also worked as a director, staging
performances at, for example, the Hoftheater Prenzlauer Berg/Berlin, theater
2. fall, Group O/Paris, in Magdeburg, Halle, Tübingen, Aachen and at the
KnAM in Komsomolsk at Amur/Russia. Some of his productions were invited to
the Norddeutsches Theaterfestival, International Theatre Festival Glasow/Udmurtic
Autonomous Republic, Festival Erlangen, International Theatre Festival St.
Louis/France, Werkstatt-Tage des Kinder- und Jugendtheaters in Halle/Saale
and in the course of the first Deutsches Kinder- und Jugendtheatertreffen in
Berlin.
Kay Wuschek was a jury member for Deutscher Kinder- und Jugendtheaterpreis
2000, he belonged to the artistic direction of the festival HundsTage and to
the artistic team of the 13. Werkstatt-Tage des Kinder- und Jugendtheaters
2002 in Halle Saale. Lecturer, author, translator.
Sascha Bunge – born in 1969 in Brandenburg/Havel – grew up in
Berlin – degree in Theatre/ Cultural Communication and German Studies
at the Humboldt-University in Berlin. He was first director at the Hoftheater
Prenzlauer Berg and at the projekttheater dresden. He was producer and dramaturg
at the Festspielhaus Hellerau. Work as director, author and producer at the
German State Theatre Timisoara/Romania, Schauspiel Leipzig, Neue Bühne
Senftenberg, Kammerspiele Magdeburg, Maxim-Gorki-Theater/Berlin and HAU/Berlin.
Important productions: Vladimir Sorokin’s DIE RUSSISCHE GROßMUTTER,
DIE KONKERETEN and HOCHZEITSREISE; Lothar Trolle’s “MÄRKISCHE
PASTORALE”; Hugo Claus’s WINTERABEND; Goethe’s IPHIGENIE
AUF TAURIS; Schiller’s MARIA STUART; DAS GROßE HEFT (adapted from
Agota Kristof), Brecht’s DER BROTLADEN; Annett Gröschner’s
Moskauer Eis and stagings of several texts of his own.
Karola Marsch – born in 1968 – grew up in Berlin. Degree in German and Slawistic Studies at the University of Magdeburg. Worked as theatre in education specialist at the Freie Kammerspiele Magdeburg, Schauspiel Leipzig and at the Landestheater Linz/Austria. Worked as a dramaturg at the Theater im Marienbad Freiburg and at the Mainfranken-Theater Würzburg. Lecturer at the University of Magdeburg, University of Leipzig and at the University of Education in Freiburg. In 2001, she was a member of the jury for the 6. Deutsches Kinder- und Jugendtheatertreffen “Augenblick mal!” in Berlin. In 2003, she was part of the artistic direction for the 3. Internationale Kinder- und Jugendtheaterfestival „Schöne Aussicht“ in Stuttgart and a jury member for the Baden-Württembergische Jugendtheaterpreis 2004.
The z-shaped building complex with today’s mail address Parkaue 29 was constructed in 1911 according to the design by the city’s government building officer Johannes Uhlig and architect Wilhelm Grieme. The building with the Renaissance design became a High School for boys.
Due to the National Sociliasts’ actions to instrumentalise education the school was given a new name on 27 January 1934: “Joseph-Goebbels-Schule”. The building was hardly damaged during the Second World War. After building repairs, the Sovjet Military Administratoin in Germany (SMAD) issued the command no. 65 on 30 June 1948. The command gave the instruction to turn the school into a building dedicated to cultural purposes. After World War II, new cultural contents were meant to be conveyed to children and young people, and new spare time activities were supposed to be offered to them. Waldemar Alder, student at the famous Bauhaus, and his business partner Waldemar Heinrichs worked on the re-construction plans; the top-quality room setup came from the German Workshops Hellerau. After the completition of the building, the former school became the “House of Culture of the Sovjet Union, Section for Children”.
On account of command no. 65, rooms were established for instrumental music lessons, choirs, folk dance, ballet, acting, language classes, history classes, natural study, photography and applied arts. In the building there were also a miniature observatory, workshops for wood, metal and electrical engineering, studios for painting, sculpture and pottery, as well as a library, a reading room, a cinema and a theatre. The theatre was then called “Theater der Freundschaft” (theatre of friendship).
The opening production “Du bist der Richtige” (“You are the right one”), directed by the first theatre manager, Hans Rodenberg, had to be staged at the Maxim-Gorki-Theater due to difficulties in the sourcing of material. Finally, the “Theater der Freundschaft” could be inaugurated with the 90th performance on 16 November 1950.
In 1959 Ilse Weintraut-Rodenberg became the theatre manager of the first theatre for children and young people among the Berlin theatres. She retired in 1974. Other important theatre managers were Klaus Urban and Dr. Siegfried Wein. Many important directors, e.g. Horst Hawemann, Wolfgang Engel, Mirjana Erceg, Carl-Herrmann Risse and Konrad Zschiedrich, staged prodcutions at the “Theater der Freundschaft”.
In 1991 the Berlin Senate called Manuel Schöbel to be the new theatre manager. He was Germany’s youngest theatre manager at that time. He opened his first season with seven premieres within four days. In the second season, the theatre was re-named into “carrousel Theater an der Parkaue”. Since 1991, the Deutsche Kinder- und Jugendtheatertreffen „Augenblick mal!“ (presented by the Kinder- und Jugendtheaterzentrum der Bundesrepublik Deutschland) takes place at the theatre every other year.
In 2004, the Berlin Senate intended to shorten the subsidies for the theatre for children and young people in the state of Berlin down to 50 %. After staff, visitors, friends and promoters of the theatre showed their resentment under the headline “Ganze Menschen brauchen ganzes Theater” (“Whole people need a whole theatre”), the Senate withdrew their plans.
Under the new leadership by theatre manager Kay Wuschek, first director Sascha Bunge and Karola Marsc, Head of the Education and Dramaturgy Department, the location PARKAUE is to become a centre of artistic variety. Since August 2005 its name has been THEATER AN DER PARKAUE.
