About Theater o.N.

Profile

Theater o.N. is an independent theater in Berlin that produces work for children, youth and adults. In the past ten years, the theater has become a steadfast fixture and an anchor point in Berlin and nationwide in theater for the very young (aged 0-6). Our hearts belong to our youngest audience, to whom we dedicate our artistic and participative research, our productions and symposiums. To serve the audience of Berlin daycare center children — that is, a quarter-million Berlin citizens— with entertaining and challenging dance and theater arts, to be a site for contact and exchange for interested artists in the field and, through surprising collaborations, to spark innovative and experimental impulses in theater for (very) young audiences, we view as the aim and mission of our work.

History

The theater can look back on a long history. Founded in 1979/1980 as Theater Zinnober, it was the first, and for a long time the only, independent theater in the GDR. Working collectively, the artists developed groundbreaking productions such as "traumhaft" [dreamlike] (1985) and "Die Bremer Stadtmusikanten" [Bremen Town Musicians] (1986). The end of the GDR also impacted the theater’s existence: Rising rental costs forced a move to a new venue, where it changed its name to Theater o.N. (Theater ohne Namen – without a name?) and made Kollwitzstrasse 53 its home, starting in 1996. That era will close in 2025 and the theater will move to a new space a bit further north, in the Fröbelkapelle in the complex of the district office of Pankow.

Reorientation

In 2010, a new collective of individuals was brought together on the foundation of the theater group’s previous history. Under the artistic direction of Ania Michaelis, the new team adapted organizational structures and established two new artistic working concepts: Theater and dance for the very young and Beyond the neighborhood — participative projects with children and youth. The ensemble adheres to the idea that culture is relevant for everyone, regardless of their age and their social or cultural origins. Since the theater group‘s founding, its approach to theater work has been to take individual life stories seriously and set them in relation to the times.

In 2012, Dagmar Domrös and Vera Strobel took over the artistic co-direction of the theater and, along with Doreen Markert since 2014, now form the artistic direction collective. Grounded in flat hierarchies and a strong ensemble spirit, this directing collective led the theater through a process of several years of generational shift and gradual structural professionalization. Created step by step since 2021, the number of stable part-time positions has now reached five. All other members of the 20-person ensemble work on a contract and project basis.

Equity and accessibility

As of 2018-19, the opening process has shifted markedly in our focus toward more diversity in the team and onstage. Since 2020-21, we are working to improve the accessibility of our programs for audience members with disabilities and for a neurodiverse audience. As an ensemble and a directing colletive, most of us are positioned as white and without disabilities, which in turn has implications for our engagement with issues like decoloniality and ablism. In addition to training workshops in antiracism, cultural appropriation and ablism, we continue to bring consultants and experts into our production teams and to delegate artistic and conceptional responsibilities wherever possible.

In our contracts, we apply an antidiscrimination clause drafted in cooperation with Kanzlei Laaser — one building block in our efforts to create power-critical and fair working conditions.

Prizes and awards

Theater o.N. has received many awards for its trailblazing work, regionally and internationally, in theater from the start as well as in the field of participative arts: Invitations to Augenblick mal! The festival of theater for young audiences with the production HARVEST by Isabelle Schad (2023) and the sound arts pieces "Klangquadrat" (Sound Square) and "Schnürchen"[Tiny Twine] (2019). "HARVEST" (2022), "Future Beats" (2019), "Kleines Stück Himmel" [Little Piece of Heaven] (2016), "Weiße Wäsche" [Laundry on the Line] (2013) and "Kokon" [Cocoon] (2011) were nominated for the IKARUS Prize. In 2023, the production "Flip-Flop" was awarded the prize for best children's play by the expert jury. In 2014, Theater o.N. received the George Tabori Award. We see the invitations to renowned festivals to show productions or to lecture on aesthetic and content-based questions as affirmation of our motivation to play an active role in shaping the European children’s and youth theater scene.

We take responsibility for cultural policy as well: Theater o.N. is a member of ASSITEJ and LAFT Berlin, is active in AK Ost (the working group for children’s and youth theater in the former East German states of Berlin, Brandenburg, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia), as well as in the working group of Berlin children’s and youth theater. Vera Strobel served on the board of LAFT Berlin from 2014-2017 and Dagmar Domrös from 2017-2022, where she is still active on the committee for culture in the districts.

Festivals

Since 2013, Theater o.N. has produced the biennial FRATZ International, a performing arts festival for the very young with venues in six Berlin districs. Through the FRATZ festival structure, the theater commits itself to creating decentralized cultural offerings and aims to make an artistic contribution against social division and exclusion. At the same time, FRATZ gathers the international theater scene for the very young in Berlin, to discuss developments in this theater form within the framework of a symposium and various research formats. Theater o.N. developed the project Berliner Schaufenster ( Berlin Showcase ) in 2016 to create a presentation platform for the independent Berlin children’s theater scene (for ages 0-7) and to support exchange, professional development and networking among its actors.

Repertoire program

As a producer, Theater o.N. develops 1-3 new productions annually, many of them for very young audiences and others for audiences aged 6-14, as well as an ensemble piece for adults every three to four years. Successful new productions are generally added to the running repertoire of the playhouse at Kollwitzplatz – with the declared goal of showing our self-created productions throughout many years at regular intervals. In 2023, 13 repertory pieces and 3 new productions were performed.

Ensemble

The theater works with an established ensemble at its core and continually seeks inspiration from without by inviting artists of various genres onto the team and by engaging in cooperations.

Aesthetic lines

The current Theater o.N. has renewed itself time and time again, while staying true to its traditional roots in political puppet theater. Physically-oriented acting and singing, a unique form of the biographical method and theater of materials and objects all characterize Theater o.N. productions. By these means – expanded by impulses from other areas such as New Music, contemporary dance, visual arts – the ensemble carries out its aesthetic research, as much in its works for the very young as for its adult audiences.