The Bremen Town Musicians

Digital Archiving via digiS 

In 2025, as part of the DigiS funding program of the Berlin Senate Department for Culture, we have begun to digitize objects and documents in the Zinnober/Theater o.N. archive.

The project spotlights the production of The Bremen Town Musicians and includes the initial cataloging, digitization and opening of public access for all essential archive objects. The centerpiece will be a photographic recording of the stage scenic elements, puppet figures and props. In addition, select posters and photographed scenes, as well as a video recording and a Russian libretto, will be digitized. Three of the four performers, now aged 70 and older, will participate in the project as contemporary witnesses and give interviews, which will also be digitalized and publicized as a contextual framing.

The project results will be presented in February 2026 at a cultural salon at Theater o.N.. The digitized content of the Bremen Town Musicians will be publicly accessible on the online platform museum-digital, as well as in the newly created Digitalen Archiv der Freien Darstellenden Künste (Digital Archive of Independent Performing Arts).

From the project funding application:

“Focusing on the ‘The Bremen Town Musicians’ makes perfect sense to us for this planned project, in order to begin the systematic development of the theater archive at a key point in our history. ‘The Bremen Town Musicians’ is Zinnober/Theater o.N.’s longest-playing production. It spans 33 years of Zinnober/Theater o.N., from the story of the production’s evolution during the final years of the GDR to the present day (1986 to 2019); the production made its last public appearance in 2021 in memory of Günther Lindner, as part of a streaming special by nachtkritik.de.

Due to this timespan of over three decades, this production provides a basis to recollect significant aspects of the theater’s development. It was created in between temporary performance bans and could only be performed at the groups‘s storefront spaces in Berlin‘s Prenzlauer Berg district without prior notice and behind shuttered windows. The story of the “Bremen Town Musicians” taking off in search of a better future, their longing for change and fears of the new could be read at the time as a nuanced commentary on sociopolitical conditions and it has lost none of its relevance today.”

One essential design feature of the Zinnober version of “The Bremen Town Musicians” is the revelation of the players behind the puppets are revealed, "A shadow puppet theater with a double bottom, " (Kultur Joker, Freiburg in Breisgau) that "has no need to hide the creation of all the images and situations in order to make them effective. Contrary to destroying the illusion, the opposite occured." (Badische Zeitung)

This double or ambiguous narrative style, which involves the adults in the audience, occurs in many other Zinnober/Theater o.N. productions, as does the collective development of a play – making this project, as part of the collection to be digitized, a prime example of the group‘s artistic work.

Project Title:

“The Bremen Town Musicians” by Zinnober/Theater o.N. - Archival material from three decades of the independent theater scene in Berlin (1986-2019)

Project participants:

Contemporary witnesses: Uta Lindner, Iduna Hegen, Dieter Kraft, Gabriele Hänel and others
Interviews & cultural-historical classification: Henning Fülle
Photography: David Beecroft
Research collaboration/archiving: Barbara Jennerwein-Hansing
Project management: Doreen Markert
Administration: Kata Kovács 

Cultural Salon:

In February 2026, as part of FADING OUT – Farewell to Kollwitzstraße, we will host a cultural salon to present the project results to the public. Interested parties are warmly invited to join us for a discussion. The exact date is yet to be announced.

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This project is part of the funding program for the digitization of cultural heritage in Berlin, carried out by the Berlin Research and Competence Center for Digitization (digiS) with funds from the Berlin Senate for Culture and Social Cohesion in 2025.

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Photo credits / left to right:

Construction of the stage set, 2025 ©Barbara Jennerwein-Hansing
Digital listing of stage set elements, 2025 ©David Beecroft
Uta Lindner & Iduna Hegen at the “stage altar,” 2025 ©David Beecroft
Spinning the carousel, 2025 ©David Beecroft
Cat bridge_shadow side, 2025 ©David Beecroft
Cat bridge_back side, 2025 ©David Beecroft
Cat staff_measurement, 2025 ©David Beecroft
Robber_rear view, 2025 ©David Beecroft