Yvonne Büdenhölzer is a dramaturge, curator, and festival director. She curated the theater biennial “Neue Stücke” (New Plays) from Europe in Wiesbaden and Mainz (2010) and directed the play market at the Berlin Theater Meeting (2005 to 2011). From 2012 to 2022, she was artistic director of the Theatertreffen. In 2020, she introduced a 50% quota for women in directing positions, initiated the “Forum on Ecological Sustainability,” and co-curated the conference on gender (in)equality “Burning Issues” twice.
In 2020, she received the Berlin Women’s Prize for her commitment to equal opportunities in theater. Since 2021, she has been president of the International Theater Institute (ITI-Germany). Yvonne Büdenhölzer is a member of various juries and expert commissions, including the German Federal Cultural Foundation and the Goethe-Institut. Since 2023, she has been head of Suhrkamp Theater Verlag.

Hendrik Frobel has been managing director of Chamäleon Berlin gGmbH since 2011 and, as part of a dual leadership team alongside artistic director Anke Politz, has played a key role in restructuring the privately-run cultural enterprise and securing its subsequent non-profit status. In 2023, Chamäleon was awarded the Federal Theater Prize in the category of private theaters and guest performance venues for its commitment to contemporary circus and independent circus artists.
Maintaining social justice within the company, considering equality a matter of course, and ensuring a familiar and family-friendly working environment are important concerns for Hendrik Frobel. He also places a special focus on sustainable management, areas such as finance, funding measures, and controlling. For many years, he has successfully demonstrated that aspects such as “economic efficiency” and “artistic standards” can always be combined with excellent service quality.
Hendrik Frobel is very committed to networking cultural creators and innovators and is a member of INTOURA, DIE MITTE, the Wirtschaftskreis Mitte, the DEHOGA, and the Deutscher Bühnenverein, among others.

Martina Grohmann, born in Mödling (Austria) in 1972, studied theater studies at the University of Vienna. She then worked as a production manager at steirischer herbst. From 2000 onwards, she worked as a dramaturge for theater at the Staatstheater Kassel, the Theater Heidelberg, where she directed the venue for contemporary drama “zwinger1,” as well as at the Theater Basel and the Schauspiel Frankfurt. Together with director Marie Bues, she ran Theater Rampe in Stuttgart from 2013 as a writers’ theater and production house for the independent performing arts. There she realized co-productions with municipal theaters, created experimental and participatory formats, developed festival concepts, and was involved in artistic networks. Theater Rampe was awarded the Federal Theater Prize in 2019 for its program as a “new type of municipal theater.” Martina Grohmann is a member of the board of D/Arts – Project Office for Diversity and Urban Dialogue. Since the 2023/24 season, she has formed the artistic management team at Schauspielhaus Wien together with Marie Bues, Tobias Herzberg, and Mazlum Nergiz.

Clemens Leander was born in Hoyerswerda in 1988 and studied art history and theater studies in Berlin. He has been working as a costume designer since 2009. From 2013 to 2015, he was head of the costume department at the Theater an der Parkaue, Junges Staatstheater Berlin. In 2016, he began working at the Salzburg Festival in the production management of the costume department. There, he supervised all of the festival’s theater productions until 2020. Since 2021, he has been teaching at the Dresden Academy of Fine Arts. Since the 2022/23 season, he has been part of the drama department at Theater Magdeburg. There, he established the “Kosmos” series, which facilitates new ways of working and forms of collaboration. He also founded “Bande,” an artistic academy for young people, and has been curating it since its inception. As a costume designer, Clemens Leander works with directors such as Clara Weyde, Alice Buddeberg, Markus Heinzelmann, Charly Hübner, Ulrich Rasche, and the performance collective Showcase Beat Le Mot, among others. In his work, he takes a strong content- and concept-based approach to elements of historical clothing and combines them with contemporary set pieces to develop a timeless aesthetic.

Stawrula Panagiotaki studied modern German literature, modern Greek studies, and German as a foreign language at the Free University of Berlin. During her studies, she worked at the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities, among other places. From 2009 to 2013, she worked as an assistant and dramaturge at the Schauspiel Köln theater. She then joined the independent group COSTA COMPAGNIE as part of the German Federal Cultural Foundation’s “Doppelpass” program at the Theater und Orchester Heidelberg. She also worked as a dramaturge at the Theater Bonn and the Staatstheater Darmstadt, as well as an editor and dramaturge for the Berlin Theatertreffen. In independent contexts, she produced with the feminist collective SWOOSH LIEU at the Künstlerhaus Mousonturm in Frankfurt and works regularly with MOUVOIR/Stephanie Thiersch (including for the Ruhrtriennale 2020 production ARCHIPEL). From 2016 to 2023, Panagiotaki was engaged as a dramaturge at Schauspiel Köln, where she also managed the off-site venue “Britney” at Offenbachplatz. Since 2023, Stawrula Panagiotaki has been managing studiobühneköln.

Since 1983, dramaturge Gundula Reinig has worked at municipal and state theaters, commercial musical theaters, private theaters, and guest performance venues. Her most important positions were at the State Theater Stuttgart and Schauspiel Essen, the Theater der Stadt Bielefeld, and the Südthüringische Staatstheater Meiningen. From 1995 to 1998, she worked as assistant to the CEO of Stella AG in Hamburg, followed by a position at the Vereinigte Bühnen Wien. From 2002 to 2020, she helped shape the image of the Renaissance Theater Berlin as deputy artistic director, chief dramaturge, and head of press and public relations. This was followed by the position of representative of the Komödie im Bayerischen Hof in Munich. In February 2025, she was appointed director of the Theater Rüsselsheim. In addition, from 2019 to 2025, she was actively involved in the association as co-chair of the private theater group on the executive committee of the German Stage Association. In 2024 and 2025, she was appointed to the jury of nominees for the German Theater Prize DER FAUST in the categories “Actor/Actress” and “Theatrical Production.”

Johanna Sandberg studied theater studies, art history, and philosophy at the universities of Leipzig, Göttingen, and Trinity College in Dublin. She has worked as a dramaturge at the E.T.A. Hoffmann Theater in Bamberg and as a lecturer in dramaturgy. Most recently, she worked for a concert agency for over ten years. Since 2021, she has been the artistic director of the Ernst Barlach Theater in Güstrow. Under her leadership, the theater was awarded the Federal Theater Prize in the category “Private Theaters and Guest Performance Venues” in 2024.
She has been a member of the INTHEGA board since 2022. In addition, she is involved in the Volkbühnenbewegung (People’s Theater Movement) on a voluntary basis and is a member of the board of the Bundes deutscher Volksbühnen (Association of German People’s Theaters). Johanna Sandberg was a member of the jury for the Volksbühnenpreis für Theaterliteratur (People’s Theater Prize for Theater Literature), which was awarded in May 2025 as part of the Ruhrfestspiele Recklinghausen.

Born in Berlin in 1988. Studied classical studies and history in Basel, Poitiers, and Cambridge. Also worked as a freelance journalist for the Basler Zeitung, Süddeutsche Zeitung, and Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Internships and guest dramaturgy at the theater. Co-organizer of the Junger Salon in Berlin. From 2012 to 2016, he pursued doctoral studies at Humboldt University in Berlin, which he completed with a dissertation entitled: “From Mommsen to Gelzer? Conceptions of Roman Republican Society in ‘Constitutional Law’ and ‘Nobility.’” Since October 2016, he has been an editor in the arts section. In 2017, he published his narrative debut, “Sieben Nächte” (Seven Nights). Since 2018, he has been a member of the board of the association Arbeit an Europa e. V. and is the initiator of the European eyewitness project “European Archive of Voices.” His book “Römische Tage” (Roman Days) was published in 2019. In 2023, the novella “zu zweit” (together) was published.

Julian Warner is a German-British artist and curator. He was artistic director of the Brecht Festival Augsburg from 2023 to 2025 and was responsible for the Stuttgart Culture Region Festival in 2022. Prior to that, he designed festivals and spectacles for the Künstlerhaus Mousonturm, the Münchner Kammerspiele, and many others. He has long-standing working relationships with conceptual artist Anta Helena Recke, choreographer Joana Tischkau, theater maker Oliver Zahn, and musician Markus Acher. He is the editor of an anthology on problems of postcolonial criticism in Germany, After Europe. Contributions to Decolonial Criticism (Verbrecher Verlag, 2021) and has been training as a group analyst at the Seminar für Gruppenanalyse Zürich (SGAZ) since 2018. In the summer of 2025, he received a call to the University of Music and Performing Arts Stuttgart (HMDK).