„“The Anhaltisches Theater Dessau implemented an ambitious and high-profile program covering all genres amid intense political pressure to make cuts. The production “Kristallpalast,” which was linked to a research project and was a cooperation between the two areas, dance and drama, that were temporarily threatened with closure, was an example of how the theater opened up to the history of the city and its inhabitants. The jury also sees the award to the Anhaltisches Theater Dessau as an encouragement to continue this type of program under difficult financial conditions and a new artistic direction.” –  Jury statement " - Jury statement

„“Das letzte Kleinod is an outstanding example of contemporary theater work in the rural region between Bremerhaven and Buxtehude. The group is based at the Gestenseeth station, from where it sets off on expeditions with the audience throughout the region in its own theater train, the “Ocean Blue Train,” with up to 10 carriages. Their plays deal with the themes of the cultural landscape on the North Sea coast: work, flight, migration, colonialism, research, piracy and war. Based on this regional positioning, the group has developed new, contemporary formats that focus on the highly topical subject of flight and expulsion, which it also implements in international collaborations. Productions for children and young people also form an important part of the program.” – Jury statement " - Jury statement

„“With the prize for the Figurentheaterzentrum Westflügel Leipzig, the jury would like to honor a theater genre that is often overshadowed by media attention. The Westflügel is a place that presents a remarkably broad spectrum of national and international puppet theater to the public. The program focuses on the productions of the in-house ensemble ‘Wilde & Vogel,’ in addition to which numerous international collaborations, works by up-and-coming artists, workshops and other discourse platforms are initiated, as well as close cooperation with the FITZ! – Zentrum für Figurentheater Stuttgart. As a result, the Westflügel has not only developed into a remarkable production venue, but also into a think tank for contemporary puppet theater.” – Jury statement " - Jury statement

„For 15 years, the Forum Freies Theater (FFT) in Düsseldorf has been creating a program that brings together the participation of the city’s inhabitants and experimental artistic positions in the performing arts. To this end, it is constantly inventing new formats with regional and international artists in which it successfully combines different disciplines of conceptual thinking with aesthetic actions. In this way, the FFT creates a sphere of city, art and theater on an equal footing, which strives not only to understand figures of thought as an artistic process, but also to convey their complexity and transpose them into the reality of life.” – Jury statement " - Jury statement

„“The FUNDUS Theater in Hamburg’s Wandsbek district is a unique children’s theater in Germany that sees itself as a place for social experimentation and turns children into explorers of the reality that surrounds them. Successful drama projects such as the class swap, the children’s bench and the hair salon allow children from a wide range of backgrounds to experience the world by swapping roles. Empathy and curiosity thus become the most important tools for playfully shaping the future. With the FUNDUS Theater, the jury would like to honor a particularly courageous and alert children’s theater that successfully goes its own way beyond the tried and tested forms.” – Jury statement " - Jury statement

„“Heimathafen Neukölln, which is run by a four–woman team of dedicated theater professionals, creates popular theater for the neighborhood and prefers to draw its material from the immediate surroundings, stages texts by Neukölln authors and repeatedly develops research projects around site-specific stories. With its colorful mix of theater, concerts, poetry slams, cabaret and readings, in which stories of migration, asylum and flight have long played a central role, it attracts a broad audience and seeks continuity in its repertoire despite its free structures. In the process, small gems of empathetic, role-changing drama succeed time and again with minimal scenic means, as exemplified by the works of director Nicole Oder, who has also been highly acclaimed beyond the region and who developed the play “Ultima Ratio” about a Neukölln church asylum case in 2014/15.” – Jury statement " - Jury statement

„“In the season following the highly acclaimed start of Shermin Langhoff and Jens Hillje’s directorship, the Maxim Gorki Theater continues to lead the way in reflecting the diversity of the city of Berlin, in its choice of material and in the composition of its predominantly post-migrant ensemble with their diversity of background experiences – and in doing so shows what the future municipal theater could look like in Germany as a country of immigration. With play developments and productions that either discover new texts for the theater or make the canon readable anew with decisive interpretations, this theater has attracted and retained a young and heterogeneous audience. The Gorki also repeatedly takes uncomfortable stances, such as the aggressive thematization of the Armenian genocide (and Germany’s role in it) in the themed weeks ‘Es schneit im April’ or the collaboration with the Zentrum für politische Schönheit (‘Erster Europäischer Mauerfall’).” – Jury statement " - Jury statement

„“The Städtische Bühnen Osnabrück impresses with the way it succeeds in creating a qualitatively remarkable and stringent program in all genres. Sustainable support for authors is just as central here as an ambitious music theater that is open to rarely performed and contemporary operas. With large-scale research projects and a straightforward festival concept inherited from the previous management team, the theater networks intensively in the public sphere. The consistent cultivation of ensemble work ensures that the theater is firmly anchored across the city.” – Jury statement " - Jury statement

„“The Stadttheater Bremerhaven has shown in an exemplary way how a theater far from the big theater metropolises can approach the city and its population and deal with the history, the current situation and the pressing problems of the place in which it is located. Through interdisciplinary productions and research projects, both in the theater itself and at exposed external venues, the theater confronts the specific situation of a highly indebted port city in the field of tension of unemployment, shipyard crisis and economic change.” – Jury statement " - Jury statement

„“The Theater der Altmark is characterized by a concept that, in addition to a broad and ambitious program with a committed citizens’ theater, pursues a determined opening to the city. In courageous cooperation formats, the state theater in Stendal deliberately crosses the boundaries between art and social work and thus points to the growing void of social issues in society. With its social interventions, it closes social deficits in an exemplary way, assumes direct responsibility for living together and thus actively sets an artistic example for the situation between the urban and the rural.” – Jury statement " - Jury statement

„“Leipzig’s Theater der Jungen Welt is not only a theater with a great tradition in the field of children’s and youth theater, it is also ideally positioned for the present and the future: The repertoire concept focuses on the development of unusual plays, contemporary drama and experimental dance projects – which are then realized for the stage by a strong ensemble at a consistently high standard. Original material and diverse directorial styles challenge the young audience (and adults!) in an aesthetically exemplary way to come to terms with their own contradictory feelings and attitudes as well as the ambivalences of the world around them.” – Jury statement " - Jury statement

„“Few municipal theaters are as open to the independent scene as Theater Oberhausen. This can be experienced as part of the Doppelpass cooperation (with the collective geheimagentur, which invented the lecture musical ‘Sweat Shop’ here in 2014/15) or in the cooperation with the Mülheim Ringlokschuppen and the urban exploration project ‘54th City,’ for which four independent groups created theatrical visions of the future of the Ruhr region at the beginning of the season. With an outstanding ensemble behind him, in recent years artistic director Peter Carp has repeatedly succeeded in establishing remarkably advanced aesthetics in the city and attracting international directors to his theater (in 2014/15, for example, Andriy Zholdak, Bram Jansen and Simon Stone). The balancing act between artistically challenging styles and regional connections is particularly productive here.” – Jury statement " - Jury statement