Arbeiten - Julius Florin

Assistant stage design Legende
by Kirill Serebrennikov, based on motifs from Sergey Paradjanov
Ruhrtriennale/ Kraftzentrale Duisburg, 2024

with: Filipp Avdeev, Odin Lund Biron, Campbell Caspary, Pascal Houdus, Felix Knopp, Nikita Kukushkin, Svetlana Mamresheva, Karin Neuhäuser, Daniil Orlov, Falk Rockstroh, Gurgen Tsaturyan, Tilo Werner

LEGENDE presents the world of the famous, in the West largely unknown filmmaker Sergei Parajanov. The dazzling multiplicity and surreal creativity of his films are an inspiration, most recently for superstar Lady Gaga. LEGENDE does not present the biopic of an important artist. Instead, Serebrennikov features Parajanov with poetic wit as the allegory of an artist, a poet, a wanderer, a fighter and a rebel. In ten legends, the kaleidoscope of his life between passion, eccentricity, beauty and oppression emerges, embedded in an infinitely rich cosmos of cultures.

2024 is the centenary of Sergei Parajanov. Born 1924 in Tbilisi, he grew up in the Soviet Union, where he became a film director, taking a stand in his life and his art against nomenclature and repression. As a result, he spent time in prison and hard labor camps and was banned from making films. A wide array of artists, including Tarkowski, Fellini, Antonioni, Godard, Kurosawa, Louis Aragon, Elsa Triolet, Françoise Sagan and Yves Saint Laurent, admired his surreally poetic works and called for his release from prison, in most cases to no avail. Parajanov died in 1990 in Armenia, just months before Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Ukraine gained their independence and the Soviet Union collapsed.

Stage design Donna x Machina
by Lukas Schöppl
Max Reinhardt Seminar/ Alte Studiobühne, 2024

Direction, Text: Lukas Schöppl | Costume design: Nina Holzapfel | Music: David Lipp | Lighting: Ralf Sternberg | Assistent direction: Luis Löwenstein

with: Naomi Kneip, Bernadette Leopold, Jamie Petutschnig, Alexandra Schmidt, Florian Sohn

Can a modern deus ex machina maneuver us out of the care crisis? Ageing, dying, forgetting - constants of human life that Lukas Schöppl addresses in his play “Donna x Machina”. Three women from three generations take center stage: The oldest suffers from dementia and becomes a care case. She sings - she no longer wants to communicate in any other way. No longer understanding her own mother, the daughter also feels misunderstood when she suddenly has family responsibilities again and has to give up her private life to do so. The youngest, Donna, is on the threshold of adulthood, wants to help, loses herself in the task of assisting her grandmother and becomes increasingly forgetful herself in the process.

When the mental and physical strain of home care becomes too great, a 24-hour carer is called in to help. She is an intelligent robot. A metaphor for precarious and exploitative care work that turns people into machines. What sounds like the future is, on closer inspection, soberingly present.

Assistant stage design The Unknown Woman of the Seine
by Ödön von Horváth
Volkstheater Wien, 2024

with: Birgit Unterweger, Lucas Gregorowicz, Sona MacDonald, Evi Kehrstephan, Christoph Schüchner, Nick Romeo Reimann, Günther Wiederschwinger, Hardy Emilian Jürgens, Uwe Schmieder, Irem Gökçen, Fabian Reichenbach, Theresa Eilenberger, Elisaveta Lyssenko; Kinderchor: Rising Voices

There's something funny about romantically hanging a floater over your bed, there's also something uncanny about lying sighing under a portrait that has been given the completely absurd title of "Mona Lisa of Suicide" - not to mention the fact that floaters, for all their love of the lily-bedded opulence of decadent painting, are not generally prone to relaxed smiles. But this is precisely what seemed to have fascinated the master of the uncanny and the comic, the expert on fairgrounds and Viennese nights in the midst of the end of the world; the poet who claimed that his plays were only funny because they were uncanny, and who dealt with this death mask twice: Ödon von Horváth, for the first time in 1934 with "The Unknown Woman of the Seine".

Assistant stage design Heit Bin E Ned Munta Wuan
by Wolfgang Menardi
Volkstheater Wien, 2024

with: Samouil Stoyanov, Claudia Sabitzer, Matteo Haitzmann, Sixtus Preiss, Ingrid Eder, Flora Geißelbrecht, Iphigenie P.

The splendour is gone, the monarchy gone, even the Prater, Hitler and Haider gone, no more Felix Austria, no more empire, nothing. In the Natural History Museum, death peers macabrely through all the glass panes of the old display cases, the glass eyes of the dead animals glow. The Viennese are experts in conservation and specialists in appearances. They are embracing taxidermists. And death can look more vivid and powerful here than life itself. Franz Joseph, Maria Theresa, Sisi - they all still live here, and the ghosts of Heldenplatz rejoice and scream. The dead walk among us, and they are very lively.

Assistant stage design The Trial
by Franz Kafka
Thalia Theater Hamburg, 2023

with: Marina Galic, Johannes Hegemann, Christiane von Poelnitz, Pauline Rénevier, Falk Rockstroh, Merlin Sandmeyer, Stefan Stern

Somebody must have been telling lies about Josef K.” Set in the middle of the glamour and squalor of the 1920s, Franz Kafka’s literary masterpiece, ”The Trial”, is a parable for the disorientation of the individual and the untrustworthiness of perception. On his 30th birthday, Josef K. is arrested by a mysterious authority planning to put him on trial. The bank clerk defends his innocence adamantly and finds himself sucked into a mire of inscrutable ordinances and human disarray. Seduction and obsequiousness, obedience and betrayal – in short: powerless individuals in the clutches of an almighty society – surround him. Feverishly, K. tries to distinguish between sense and nonsense. Trapped in a erratic system, he longs for self-efficacy and puts himself on trial by painstakingly studying the scales of his guilt and innocence.

Assistant stage design King Lear
by William Shakespeare, German translation by Miru Miroslava Svolikova
Thalia Theater Hamburg, 2023

Direction: Jan Bosse | Stage design: Stéphane Laimé | Costume design: Kathrin Plath | Dramaturgy: Christina Bellingen | Music: Jonas Landschier

with: Wolfram Koch, Christiane von Poelnitz, Falk Rockstroh, Tilo Werner, Anna Blomeier, Toini Ruhnke, Pauline Rénevier, Johannes Hegemann; Live-Music: Jonas Landerschier, Leo Schmidthals, Tilo Werner

We’ve all had enough of the reign of old white men! Let the young people finally take over, particularly young women! – Even the king agrees. Now he must organise his estate, sort out fair distribution among the three daughters and withdraw from politics with dignity. But unfortunately, it’s not that easy to overthrow power. When his youngest and favourite daughter doesn’t receive a flattering declaration of love in the desired way he expects, he unceremoniously disinherits her. In view of his waning authority and in an act of hypocrisy, Lear sets alight everything around him and reduces it to rubble, until there’s nothing left. Is it the obstinance of old age? Panic? Megalomania? The beginnings of dementia? Helplessly clinging on to his beloved rule? Seemingly it’s a weakness that doesn’t only affect him; but also the Earl of Gloucester, once his trusted confidante, who backs the wrong child and fails to get out of this game of power with any dignity.

Why is it so hard to let go? Who carries the responsibility for legacy? And what conditions should you set out for the next generation? “You shouldn’t have grown old until you were wise!” summarises the fool, Lear’s final companion on the stormy moor.

Assistant stage design Caligula
by Albert Camus
Deutsches Theater Berlin/ Kammerspiele, 2022

with: Elias Arens, Natali Seelig, Jonas Sippel, Juliana Götze, Christian Behrend, Rebecca Sickmüller, Guido Lambrecht, Manuel Harder, Harald Baumgartner, Jeremy Mockridge, Niklas Wetzel, Philipp Rohmer (Live-music)

After the death of his sister and lover Drusilla, the young Roman Emperor Caligula is only able to perceive the limitations of life. Existence seems meaningless to him. In protest against a world "which is intolerable in its current form", he vows to eradicate lying and abolish privileges and conventions. The once popular ruler drives his longing for unlimited freedom on and on, destroying every value until finally, he becomes a tyrant and murderer. At this point, the first conspirators join forces against him. Undeterred, Caligula expedites his state-sanctioned terror in ever more horrific ways – but intending to force his victims to resist. This resistance will necessarily result in his own annihilation, for "one cannot destroy everything without destroying oneself."

Installation / Music project Antiope, 2022
Written: Rhythm Section South West | Co-production, mix & master: Samuel Irl

"The story of Antiope is also a story about the curse of boredom and about the fascination for the ugly. Yes, Antiope, the beautiful daughter of the beautiful father, the beautiful bride of the beautiful groom, began to be bored. The beautiful lost its appeal to her, the balanced annoyed her, harmony drove her mad.“ (Michael Köhlmeier, Das große Sagenbuch des klassischen Altertums)

→ Link (Album)

Associate stage design Planet Egalia – A feminist ballad opera
Production: Christiane Rösinger / HAU Hebbel am Ufer.
Parts of the play are adapted after “Egalias døtre” by © Gerd Brantenberg.
HAU Hebbel Am Ufer, 2021

Artistic direction, text and composition: Christiane Rösinger | Direction: Meike Schmitz | Musical direction: Laura Landergott, Elise Mory | Band: Laura Landergott, Julie Miess, Elise Mory, Albertine Sarges | Stage design: Marlene Lockemann, Sina Manthey | Costume design: Sophia Sylvester Röpcke | Choreography: Rúben Nsue | Video and Live-Camera: Kathrin Krottenthaler | Lighting design: Hans Leser | Artistic consultation: Aenne Quiñones | Production management HAU: Jana Penz | Production Management, Stage Management: Chiara Galesi

with: Jona James Aulepp, Sila Davulcu, Malte Göbel, Kaey Kiel, Doreen Kutzke, Laura Landergott, Julie Miess, Elise Mory, Rúben Nsue, Minh Duc Pham, Sophia Sylvester Röpcke, Christiane Rösinger, Albertine Sarges, Andreas Schwarz

At the moment, dystopias are more popular than utopias. Things were completely different in the 1970s, when female authors were creating new models of society on distant planets and in possible terrestrial futures during the heyday of the feminist utopia. In Norway, Gerd Brantenberg simply reverses the power relationships in her novel “The Daughters of Egalia”; in the USA, the triumvirate of feminist science fiction, Ursula K. Le Guin, Joanna Russ, and Marge Piercy not only eradicate gender differences in their works, but class-based society and private property as well. “Planet Egalia” brings these utopias together in the form of a ballad opera somewhere between a droll feminist tale and a gender didactic play and sends the characters in the novels off on a group trip to a different continuum of possibility: the earth in the year 2021.

Assistant stage design Ultraworld
by Susanne Kennedy und Markus Selg
Volksbühne Berlin, 2020

with: Malick Bauer, Suzan Boogaerdt, Erica Eller, Vanessa Loibl, Kate Strong, Bianca van der Schoot, Frank Willens, Zoë Willens

"Everyone is a hero in his birth. He has undergone a tremendous transformation from a little, you might say, water creature living in a realm of the amniotic fluid and so forth, then coming out, becoming an air-breathing mammal that ultimately will be self-standing and so forth, is an enormous transformation and it is a heroic act, and it’s a heroic act on the mother’s part to bring it about. It’s the primary hero form, you might say.“ (Joseph Campbell)

The creation of the world as a video game? Stage director Susanne Kennedy is today regarded as one of the leading voices in German theatre. Her trendsetting visions of the theatre are elaborated from perception-altering media, exploring the ambiguities that lie between reality and virtuality. It’s all just a game. So is the fun then over once we’ve lost one of our lives, or our life? Based on the rhythm of the creation narrative, Ultraworld addresses the question of how there can be anything out of nothing? Characters thrust into the (virtual) world become caught up in recurring configurations and looped conversations. Kennedy triggers the collapse of time in its forward progress within a sci-fi setting designed by visual artist Markus Selg. Actions collide with the rules of the game. ‘Now that you have been reminded of your own mortality, what are you going to do with the rest of your life?’ Kennedy’s works transcend the traditional machinery of the theatre, the logic of time and space, of character and plot. In Ultraworld it’s do or die: ‘Evening came, and then it was morning’, time and time again.

Stage design The legend of Dimi and Ela
by Sarah Amanda Dulgeris
Volksbühne Berlin/ 3. Floor, 2020

Direction: Katrin Lindner | Costume design: Nina Lopac | Music: Jan Jordan | Lighting: Denise Potratz

with: Antonis Antoniadis, Luc Schneider, Liv Stapelfeldt, Jan Jordan (Live-music)

A fast-paced biopic. After three years of separation, internment in the "Jugendwerkhof" and several escapades, Ela and her young son apply to leave the country for the West in 1980. More children follow, more conflicts, no happy ending. The adult lovers struggle to find common ground, lose each other again, stagger ... The father is imprisoned, the family breaks up. The children in the middle between two people who tried: A new generation full of fear, anger and powerlessness grows up. Is history hereditary? Do we inevitably fall into the same traps?

Assistant stage design Mamma Medea
by Tom Lanoye
Volksbühne Berlin/ 3. Floor, 2020

Direction: Pınar Karabulut | Stage & Costume design: Michela Flück | Music: Daniel Murena | Lighting: Denise Potratz | Dramaturgy: Degna Martens

with: Elmira Bahrami, Malick Bauer, Amal Keller, Paula Kober, Sarah Maria Sander, Sylvana Seddig

A look that hits. Medea meets Jason, leader of the Greeks and representative of the culture, in Colchis. In her father Aietes' people he is met with hostility. With his companions, he imagines himself among barbarians. Medea, on the other hand, is a stranger to him, and she falls for his attraction to the other.
Betraying Aietes and her sister Chalkiope, she stands by him in his trial for the Golden Fleece: Soldiers outgrowing the field, he kills them all and takes Medea with him to Corinth. Based on Euripides' tragedy, the transcription by Flemish author and playwright Tom Lanoye knows two culprits, the culprits of a marriage.

Assistant stage design Germania
based on Heiner Müller
Volksbühne Berlin, 2019

with: Malick Bauer, Katja Gaudard, Sebastian Grünewald, Peter Jordan, Amal Keller, Paula Kober, Mathis Reinhardt; Puppeteers: Sebastian Ryser, Lina Mareike Wolfram, Zenghao Yang; Singers: Friederike Harmsen, Rowan Hellier, Narine Yeghiyan; Choir, Mark Scheibe and orchestra

Two pieces. In addition, a "Prussian Opening. The arc that Müller creates is enormous. The Varus Battle in 9 A.D., the Nibelungs before Stalingrad, Napoleon, Caesar, Frederick II, the deaths of Luxemburg and Liebknecht in 1919, Hitler, Stalin, the founding of the GDR, June 17, 1953, the building of the Wall, old owners after the fall of the Wall. Germania. The birth of a nation from the spirit of war. Germania. A grotesque? A tragedy?

Assistant stage design Final Fantasy
based on Oscar Wilde
Volksbühne Berlin/ 3. Floor, 2019

with: Katja Gaudard, Simon Mantei, Daniel Nerlich, Teresa Schergaut, Maria Walser

Lust as a drive, as a myth, a taboo subject, as a prohibition, liberation, sin and privilege, as an instrument of power, as a tool of manipulation, as a construction? Lust, it is a curiosity - also for Oscar Wilde's Salomé: "Ah! You did not want me to kiss your mouth, Jochanaan. Well! Now I will kiss it. I will bite into it with my teeth as into a ripe fruit." Many years later, somewhere in the world or on a distant star, there is a small civilization that takes on the phenomenon of lust in a peculiarly intense way. In fact, the group has at its disposal, as its most important source, Wilde's treatment of Salomé: This beautiful, mad figure, with its stalkers, this curious attraction and desire as urgent as it is unfulfilled, inspires them to bring a message to the stage. Just as Salomé sheds the worldly layers in her veil dance to reveal the 'real,' so too is this strange group in search of the real: What is the real pleasure?

Assistant stage design The Bauhaus: A Redeeming Requiem
by Schorsch Kamerun
Volksbühne Berlin, 2019

with: Paul Herwig, Paula Kober, Anne Tismer, Corinna Scheurle, Mia von Matt, Frank Willens, Musiker: Schorsch Kamerun, PC Nackt, Sir Henry, Elena Kakaliagou, Nils Marquardt, Jonas Urbat, Phonoschrank, Fee Aviv Marschall; projekt bauhaus and guests: Torsten Blume, Beatriz Colomina, Christian Hiller, Philipp Oswalt, Katja Szymczak, Mark Wigley; P14: Mauri Bachnick, Leander Dörr, Yasmin El Yassini, Ben Engelgeer, Imke Grünewald Francia, Elena Herrmann, Musa Kohlschmidt, Marlene Kommallein, Gesa Kreye, Anna Marie Lutz, Celine Meral, Natascha Merckens, Finn Michelis, Luzie Scheuritzel, Anaїs Urban, Leonie Volke; UdK Berlin: Mina Büker, Ferdinand Dölberg, Milan Dölberg, Charlotte Eitelbach, Tania Elstermeyer, Laurent Garnier, Veronika Melanie Haas, Magnus Krüger, Hansol Kim, Lorenz Lauten, Merav Leibküchler, Marleijn Spekking, Jannik Richard Steinmeyer, Ana Tomic, Thomas Zipp; DIE ETAGE: Lauren Fitzgerald, Karlotta Frank, Rocío Gottschalk del Pozo, Nadine Haas, Milena Nowak, Daniel Sellami, Henrike Swoboda, Evelin Uus, Tim Vandenbroeck; And: Kristina Pleinert, Luise Tismer, Hauke Vogt, Genoveva Wieland

In an act of self-assertion, Mies van der Rohe, together with its teachers and students, closed the Bauhaus in Berlin on July 20th 1933. This is now over 85 years ago. The greater the distance to the happy, historical times of the Bauhaus, however, the more expectation and longing for its presence and timeliness rise. Is the radiant Bauhaus inventiveness still alive or has it long since mutated into an omnipresent yet zombified museum that's being ridden to death? After taking a critical inventory of the Bauhaus' ideas in its jubilee year, we want to pause for a moment and throw a combative farewell party in the form of a grand concert laden funeral: The fiercest update of the great Bauhaus accepts its temporary suspension in order to protect itself against general ossification.

Assistant stage design The hand is a lonesome hunter
by Katja Brunner
Volksbühne Berlin/ 3. Floor, 2019

with: Elmira Bahrami, Malick Bauer, Paula Kober, Skye MacDonald, Linda Vaher

For Saint Juliet on the cross - hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come not, thy will be done not, not in heaven, not on earth, for the snails, for inequality of pay, for and because of the treadmills of female desire, for the narrative of frustrated lesbians, for fraternities, for women over fifty five (so-called neutrals), for sunbeams on shaved heads, for bloody innards, for feasts, for Hildegard von Bingen, for weather fluctuations, for you, her, it, him, for us. Performers: Many. Many quota women. Fewer to no quota men. It is at an eternal blue hour.

Freelance assistant stage design abgrund
by Maja Zade
Schaubühne am Lehniner Platz, 2019

with: Christoph Gawenda, Moritz Gottwald, Jenny König, Laurenz Laufenberg, Isabelle Redfern, Alina Stiegler

Whether water can remember its original state with the help of coloured crystals; whether wallpaper actually holds the walls together; whether it is »refugees« or »displaced persons«; whether getting married excludes the others; whether dog owners find it easier to get pregnant; whether one person in an open relationship must always suffer and, moreover, whether it’s a faux pas to wear tracksuit bottoms to a party; where to buy spelt and where lavender; whether Sabbath dinner is an experience for atheists; whether the truffle soup tastes good, the wine has a gooseberry finish and the meat is tender; whether the nightmarish, cannibalistic film scene really needs to be retold again already; whether it is still or once more in vogue to use the word »cool«: at one of Bettina and Matthias' dinner parties every topic under the sun, important or banal, is up for discussion while their little girl Pia and baby Gertrud sleep as peacefully as angels in the room next door … Beneath the smooth surface of the oft-repeated phrases and conversational clichés of the enlightened, educated middle classes, »abgrund« outlines a scenario of the greatest possible tragedy and unleashes horror from the fearful imagination into real life. The response is a state of shock, bottomless small talk, repression and the hope that everything was just a thought experiment.

Associate stage design Madame Poverty. A set of emotion and sensation
by Marius Schötz
Volksbühne Berlin/ 3. Floor, 2018

Direction: Marius Schötz | Idea, concept, lyrics: Johanna Kobusch | Stage design: Robin Metzer | Costume: Florian Kiehl

mit: Paula Kober, Carolin Knab, Tiffany Köberich, Jonathan Kempf, Felix Mayr, Jorres Risse, Jakob Wundrack (Live-music)

The first reason why Emma has to die is Gustave Flaubert. It is said that she killed herself because she believed the stories and mistook them for life. And the question is still valid today: what happens when the ideas of life are democratized and everyone wants what only happens to a few? The production uses music and text to search for an experience that blurs the boundaries between life and narrative and sisters us to Emma.

Music video Graffiti, 2018

→ Link (Video)

Associate stage design Romeo and Juliet
by William Shakespeare, German translation by Marius von Mayenburg
Schauspielhaus Bochum, 2017

with: Sarah Grunert, Torsten Flassig, Jakob Benkhofer, Fridolin Sandmeyer, Michael Schütz, Matthias Redlhammer, Nils Kreutinger

The world is divided: On one side of the wall rule the Capulets, on the other the Montagues. Violence reigns on both sides. Every border crossing, every encounter causes injuries and deaths. Why does Romeo, the son of the house of Montague, fall in love with Juliet, the daughter of Lady Capulet? Is it the danger to life of this love that draws the two to each other? Father Lorenzo performs the secret wedding ceremony. But after only one night, disaster takes its course: Romeo kills Juliet's cousin Tybalt and must flee. Juliet's resolute mother works flat out to marry her daughter to a rival. The only option is escape. Or death. Or both.

Artistic collaboration sculpture The World at My Back
Based on the novel by Thomas Melle
Akademietheater Vienna, 2017

with: Joachim Meyerhoff

A man loses his mind. The things around him speak to him, the symbols from adverts, news and daily life rise up – he is the centre of the universe. An attempt to delve into extreme mental states, a struggle for autonomy and sovereignty over one’s own biography.

Associate stage design Kaspar Häuser Meer

by Felicia Zeller

Thalia Theater Hamburg/ Thalia Gauß, 2016

Direction: Friederike Harmstorf | Stage design: Stéphane Laimé | Costume design: Sibylle Wallum | Dramaturgy: Susanne Meister | Music: Konrad Hempel

with: Gabriela Maria Schmeide, Birte Schnöink, Victoria Trauttmansdorff

Anika, Barbara and Silvia are social workers in the youth welfare office. They work with the kind of children who only come into the public eye once they are dead – abused and neglected in so-called ‘difficult social circumstances.’ The daily struggle against powerlessness, excessive workload and capitulation escalates as their colleague, Björn is signed off for stress and ‘Björn-Out’. His many unfinished and poorly documented ‘cases’ threaten to break the three tireless campaigners.

A brilliant report on our social reality, the unfathomable and absurd overloading cascade of three women who must take the rap for the chaos on the outskirts of our society – sometimes literally with their own bodies.

Music project Rhythm Section South West, 2015

Written: Rhythm Section South West | Mix & master: Samuel Irl

→ Link (Extended Play)

Assistant stage design The Ten Commandments
Based on the Polish drama television miniseries "Dekalog“ by Krzysztof Kieślowski and Krzysztof Piesiewicz
Schauspielhaus Zürich/ Schiffbau, 2015

with: Carolin Conrad, Dagna Litzenberger Vinet, Lena Schwarz, Friederike Wagner, Rea Claudia Kost, Hilke Altefrohne, Vreni Urech, Christian Baumbach, Gottfried Breitfuss, Jean Chaize, Fritz Fenne, Nils Kahnwald, Milian Zerzawy, Hannes Francke (Live-Camera), Marc Hemantha Hufschmid (Drums), Hipp Mathis (Bass), Aurel Kuthy / Thierry Voigt

Which commandments and prohibitions determine our lives? What values and taboos are our society based on? And what contradictions and moral conflicts do they entangle us in? The auteur filmmaker Krzysztof Kieślowski realized ten films on the ten commandments in his legendary work "Dekalog" - sometimes in very direct reference, sometimes associative and free. For her production in the Schiffbauhalle, director Karin Henkel develops from Kieślowski's template a multifaceted theme park around the central questions of guilt and punishment, faith and doubt, love and death, possession and loss, security and shock. The audience encounters the characters and stories on a walk through the inner and outer spaces of an existential topography, which takes on a reality of its own in the spaces of the Schiffbauhalle.

Assistant to the stage designer Danton´s Death
by Georg Büchner
Burgtheater Vienna, 2014

with: Jasna Fritzi Bauer, Daniel Jesch, Ignaz Kirchner, Peter Knaack, Fabian Krüger, Michael Maertens, Joachim Meyerhoff, Hermann Scheidleder, Aenne Schwarz, Adina Vetter, Stefan Wieland

Danton's Death is set in one of the darkest times of the French Revolution: the guillotine rules. The ideals of the dawn of a new age threaten to turn into their opposite. Without mercy, political dissidents or "enemies" of the Revolution who threaten their own position of power are brought before the tribunal, which knows only two sentences: acquittal or death. In 1835, the young Büchner - himself living in troubled times - used this historical background to ask existential questions in his drama: Can there be a just political system in which every individual can lead a good, self-determined life? Is man capable of peaceful coexistence? Or does the "animal" exist in each of us, ready to kill when it comes to our own advantage?

Internship stage design The Seagull
by Anton Chekhov, German translation by Andrea Clemen
Akademietheater Wien, 2014

with: Christiane von Poelnitz, Daniel Sträßer, Ignaz Kirchner, Aenne Schwarz, Johann Adam Oest, Barbara Petritsch, Mavie Hörbiger, Michael Maertens, Martin Reinke, Peter Knaack.

Who is the director of one's own life? And what and how do we tell about it on the theater? Chekhov gathers three generations on a country estate by an idyllic lake, where the summer passes seemingly uneventfully.
Kostya loves Nina from the neighboring estate. He wants her to perform his new play. She wants to go to the theater, he is looking for new forms. Nina fancies the successful writer Trigorin, the lover of Kostya's mother, the famous actress Arkadina. Her snide remarks make Kostja stop the performance. Deeply offended, he shoots a seagull, which he gives to Nina.

A subject for a short story, as Trigorin thinks in a conversation with Nina, who falls madly in love with him: on the shore of a lake lives a young girl, happy and free as a seagull. Then a man shows up and destroys her, out of boredom. So does the seagull. While the old ponder their lives and art, the young steer disillusioned into a catastrophic future. Life or art? Or love? Or money?