The Landestheater Marburg was one of the Theaterpreis des Bundes winners in 2024. The artistic directors Eva Lange and Carola Unser-Leichtweiß speak with Christine Wahl about investing the prize money and the challenges of a “care-centered theater”.

By Christine Wahl

Eva Lange, Carola Unser-Leichtweiß, when you were awarded the Theaterpreis des Bundes in 2024, it was important to you that all people and departments at the theater receive a part of the prize money – for example, the stage workers were given new work jackets. Have the 100,000 euro run out yet?

Carola Unser-Leichtweiß: Well, we can take our time until the summer of 2026, so we’re still in the process of spending it (laughs).

A nice process, isn’t it?

Unser-Leichtweiß: Definitely. We in fact have already bought the work jackets – plus tool bags – for our stage technicians. For our administrative assistant, we are planning a training course. And the makeup department did some further education that it had wanted for quite some time: knotting wigs with real hair. Naturally we try to further educate our employees regardless of the Theaterpreis. But this workshop was financially in a dimension that we usually can’t afford.

Eva Lange: We have a very comprehensive idea of our ensemble: We understand it to be all people who work at the house – independent of what department or position. And it was important to us that everyone benefitted from this prize so that it doesn’t just remain a symbolic thing. The prize made everyone extremely proud – unbelievable how many of them travelled to Berlin for the awards ceremony!

You divided the prize money in three investment segments: Half of the sum went or is going to the further education and acquisitions that you just described. Another 25 percent are to be invested in a “care-centered theater”. What is the situation in this regard?

Unser-Leichtweiß: Our entire season has the motto “Take care. For each other. Together”. We want to implement this topic in operations and specifically see in our house what such a care-centered theater can look like: What screws have we turned already, where is there still potential? That will start in March; two experts will give workshops that the whole house will be involved in.

Lange: We already had an advance meeting with a lecture and feedback session in which the employees could already formulate their concerns.

What issues were raised?

Lange: For example, whether it would be possible for women in menopause to work in flexitime and how that could be accommodated by the spontaneity of theater operations. In general, health care is a central point. It’s not just about yoga, but rather about the question of whether we, as a house that plans “silent performances” on stage, are also capable of creating quiet workspaces – zones in which it is truly and reliably quiet.

To what extent can these ideas be reconciled with the demands of theater operations?

Unser-Leichtweiß: To be totally honest, in the meantime I sometimes think: Oh God, what have we gotten ourselves into? Because: As a consequence, care-centered thinking doesn’t really get along with a capitalist-oriented theater operation. In the preliminary talks, we were having intense discussions with the workshop directors, since naturally Eva and I have to take the position of the company: We have to perform, collect money and generate a contractually determined own portion of income – with fewer people. We are still structurally short-staffed. Many measures that are worker friendly such as rehearsal-free Saturdays or organizing rehearsals while accommodating kindergarden opening hours have been standard for us for a long time. If the demands become more radical, then I’m curious to see where this will lead. And remember: I’m quite excited to see if we reach the limits of what’s possible.

Do you feel the same way, Eva Lange?

Lange: I am, in fact, less excited or nervous – that is our lived double leadership (laughs). In my case, the interest in the thought process prevails: Maybe there are screws that would not be so difficult to adjust that we just don’t see in our operations yet? And then people like the workshop directors say: Hey people, that was too easy! The exterior perspective can be extremely helpful, because one often just accepts things within operations because they have always been that way.

At the same time, the sword of Damocles is wielded over many cities and municipalities in the form of extreme austerity measures.

Unser-Leichtweiß: Yes, this is true; there is a tension here. For example, we are fighting extremely hard to be able to pay the labor tariff increases in all areas. When the female workshop directors make the certainly justified demand that we should wring additional health budgets for the employees from the political realm, then I naturally ask myself: How am I supposed to do this? The city of Marburg is in a state of consolidation!

Lange: It would actually be important to even expand care-centered theater and not limit it to the permanent employes. How do the freelance directors live, for example, who move from one theater to the next? What do their guest apartments look like? How do things look in terms of nutrition, pauses, spaces?

It really is a broad field! But there is still a third project that you want to realize with the funds from the Theaterpreis des Bundes: a cooperation with a theater from Georgia.

Unser-Leichtweiß: Exactly. We invited colleagues from a small independent theater group from Tbilisi and made a guest performance possible and took on the infrastructure and transport costs. That led to very interesting, intense conversations about the conditions colleagues work under, what issues they take on, what is even possible given the current situation and what isn’t. An exchange was actually planned. The next step would have been for us to travel to Georgia. But the situation is currently so insecure that we couldn’t accept the responsibility. So we delayed it and agreed to do it “at some point”.

Lange: Still, the week in which the Georgian colleagues were here initiated a lot in the ensemble. People who have been striking for months, making no money and are still politically active every day and going on the streets… that makes you humble towards the German theater system – and simultaneously highly aware, how fragile artistic free spaces are! In addition, we already have a certain tradition with Georgia, because we work regularly with Nino Haratischwili. So the guest performance did not just cause an extremely invigorating exchange internally, but also externally in terms of public attention.

Did anything change in your theater due to the Theaterpreis des Bundes? For example, do you have a larger audience, more attention – or are your funding applications being approved more easily?

Lange: The prize is mentioned repeatedly in the city and in the federal state of Hessen; that’s great. However, I had hoped that the national press would observe us more closely – and I see: That isn’t happening. The cultural journalists who have always visited us are still coming – but we would be happy if there were more.

Unser-Leichtweiß: Of course, we had the Theaterhaus Jena as an example in mind, which had such an incredible development after receiving the prize, and we thought: They did it right. We want to do the same thing, too! But on this point we have to honestly say: We didn’t manage that. Getting attention here, in the periphery, is very difficult. At the same time, the level of pride in our house is still immense. And what hasn’t happen yet can certainly still happen (laughs). We’ll definitely keep at it!