Barbara Frey
Barbara Frey, born in 1963 in Basel, is a director and artistic director. She studied German studies and philosophy at the University of Zurich and was initially active as a musician before gaining her first theater experience at Theater Basel under the artistic direction of Frank Baumbauer — as an assistant director, musician, and later as a director. She made her directorial debut in 1993 with the production of Sylvia Plath’s «Die Glasglocke».
This was followed by numerous productions at major stages in the German-speaking world, including the National Theatre Mannheim, the Deutsches Schauspielhaus Hamburg, the Theater am Neumarkt Zurich, the Bavarian State Opera, the Vienna Burgtheater, the Berlin Schaubühne, the Deutsches Theater Berlin, the Semperoper Dresden, the Stuttgart State Opera, and the Salzburg Festival. Her production of Chekhov’s «Onkel Wanja» at the Bavarian State Theatre was invited to the Berlin Theatertreffen in 2004. Likewise, her staging of Anna Gmeyner’s «Automatenbüfett» at the Akademietheater Vienna was invited to the Theatertreffen 2021 and won the Nestroy Prize for best direction that same year.
From 2009 to 2019, she was the artistic director of the Schauspielhaus Zurich. Subsequently, she took over the artistic leadership of the Ruhrtriennale for the years 2021 to 2023. For her services, she was awarded the Swiss Theatre Prize in 2016 and the Hans-Reinhart-Ring, the highest honor in Swiss theater, in 2022.
In the 2025/2026 season, she will direct «Kasimir und Karoline» by Ödön von Horváth at the Residenztheater.
Productions
The Oktoberfest is a place of amusement and welcome distraction, even in the midst of the global economic crisis of the early 1930s. But it is a place that puts the love between Casimir, a redundant chauffeur, and Caroline, an office worker, to the test. In the world of the petit bourgeois, people seek comfort in alcoholic excess as the hour gets late and the chasms between them are revealed. Horváth’s kaleidoscope of characters, whose monstrosity lies in their banality, shows the people of their time and how they are subject to economic necessity.
Kasimir und Karoline (Casimir and Caroline)