Attention! Volksbühne – The Theatre, the City and Its Audience A Congress in Light of Recent Events

For more than 25 years the Volksbühne on Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz in Berlin was one of the most influential theatres in the German-speaking world. Located in the heart of the capital city trying to grow back together, the ensemble around Frank Castorf transformed the cultural friction between East and West into an unprecedented artistic explosion. It both polarised and united, and stood for the city's lines of social demarcation and for its collective obsession with art. The end of an era, which began in 1992 with Ivan Nagel's visionary prophecy "It'll be famous or dead in three years", was followed by a widely disturbing interlude and yet ... all questions remain open.

Following a discussion about the ensemble theatre at the end of 2017, the Akademie der Künste is again providing a forum: What does the Volksbühne signify; what its legendary aura? What does working there really mean? What does the Volksbühne mean for Berlin? These are all key phrases in the debate between theatre people and an urban public about their expectations and desires for a people's theatre in the capital city.

Statements, panels, and audience debates with Evelyn Annuß, Anna Bergmann, Amelie Deuflhard, Klaus Dobbrick, Klaus Dörr, Wolfgang Engler, Silvia Fehrmann, Christian Grashof, Annett Gröschner, Ulrich Khuon, Ulrike Köhler, Iris Laufenberg, Thomas Martin, Hartmut Meyer, Thomas Oberender, Frank Raddatz, Hannah Schopf, Esther Slevogt, Staub zu Glitzer, Kathrin Tiedemann, Klaus Völker and many more.

In cooperation with Deutsche Bühnenverein. With kind support from Senatsverwaltung für Kultur und Europa.

At the end of the congress the Stiftung Brandenburger Tor invites participants to round off the event at the Max Liebermann Haus.