Category Municipal & State Theaters
The Oberhausen Theater is receiving the award, worth 100,000 euros, in the category of municipal and state theaters for its bold commitment to new artistic genres, diverse audiences, and socially relevant themes. Through “Urban Arts,” “Open Haus,” and international drama, it is driving strong momentum for participation and innovation. The theater demonstrates how a modern municipal theater can be compelling both structurally and artistically.
“For us, this award represents recognition of the collaborative theater work of more than 140 people, which is radically contemporary in its approach and embraces the tender, vulnerable, and complicated aspects of life. It is realized in relation to a highly diverse urban society. Oberhausen is an extremely challenged community. But the people here and the cultural policy makers are all the more aware of the value of the arts for democratic coexistence. This attitude of the urban society is also worthy of recognition and gives us courage and freedom.”
Jury statement
In recent years, Theater Oberhausen has opened its doors even wider to address contemporary themes and social relevance, reach out to the diverse communities of this city in the Ruhr region, and embrace structural innovation and new artistic disciplines. In 2023, the drama-centered theater expanded to include an urban dance division called “Urban Arts,” which, through in-house productions, battles and festivals, is not only driving artistic development but also attracting new audiences to the theater and performing important community work. The new “Open Haus” division also focuses on intensive networking with the city’s society and its stakeholders through participatory formats, appealing to a diverse audience that extends far beyond the middle-class theatergoing milieu. Theater Oberhausen is thus becoming, and not only in the current season, a “Ministry Against Loneliness” that with courage and consistency is evolving programmatically, aesthetically and structurally for and with its audience.
A special focus is also placed on new international drama featuring world premieres and first performances, commissioned plays and multi-day festivals – particularly those with ties to Southeast Europe – as well as politically current themes. In light of escalating crises and rising anti-Semitism in Germany, a laboratory for contemporary and theatrical remembrance culture emerged during the last season: Productions such as “ORATORIUM: DOYÇLAND” by Caner Akdeniz, “Milch und Kohle” by Ralf Rothmann and “Bruder Eichmann / Geschwister Eichmann” by Heinar Kipphardt / Lukas Hammerstein trace political continuities and focus on the history of a diverse Germany, women’s history and local history rooted in the Ruhr region.
Under the artistic direction of Kathrin Mädler, Theater Oberhausen exemplifies how a municipal theater can be contemporary: structurally innovative, aesthetically cutting-edge and at the same time open to new ideas, international collaboration, participatory formats and audience engagement.
