Almut Wagner
Almut Wagner
Studierte Theater-, Film- und Fernsehwissenschaft, Romanistik und Soziologie an der Universität Köln. Von 1991 bis 2001 arbeitete sie am Schauspiel Bonn, zuletzt als Dramaturgin und Direktorin des Festivals Bonner Biennale – Neue Stücke aus Europa. 2001 bis 2005 war sie Schauspieldramaturgin bei den Wiener Festwochen (Intendanz Luc Bondy, Schauspieldirektion Marie Zimmermann/Stefanie Carp). Von 2005 bis 2008 war sie Geschäftsführende Dramaturgin am Deutschen Schauspielhaus in Hamburg. 2008 bis 2010 war sie Leitende Dramaturgin bei den Wiener Festwochen, 2010 zudem Kuratorin der Programmreihe «forumfestwochen ff» und Lehrbeauftragte an der Universität Wien. 2011/2012 bis 2013/2014 leitete sie gemeinsam mit Stefan Schmidtke die Dramaturgie des Düsseldorfer Schauspielhauses. Von 2013 bis 2015 war sie Lehrbeauftragte im Studiengang Schauspiel/Regie an der Folkwang Universität der Künste Essen/Bochum. Weitere Lehraufträge hatte sie später an der Theaterakademie August Everding und am Mozarteum in Salzburg.
In den Spielzeiten 2015/2016 und 2016/2017 war Almut Wagner Geschäftsführende Dramaturgin der Sparte Schauspiel am Theater Basel. Von 2017/2018 bis 2019/2020 war sie Schauspieldirektorin am selben Haus. Mit Beginn der Spielzeit 2020 ist sie Chefdramaturgin am Residenztheater.
Sie ist Mitglied im Vorstand des Internationalen Theaterinstituts.
Productions
PART I: MILLENNIUM APPROACHES
PART II: PERESTROIKA
The mid-1980s: the outbreak of the disease AIDS alarms New York. Louis, son of a wealthy Jewish family, abandons his sick boyfriend Prior and starts a relationship with conservative Mormon lawyer Joe. When Joe’s drug-dependent wife Harper retreats into dreams of everlasting ice, his strictly religious mother flies in outraged from Salt Lake City. The Republican Roy Cohn, a cynical and power-obsessed lawyer, insists until his last breath that he is not gay and does not have AIDS. Even on his deathbed, he refuses to stop arguing about this with his black nurse Belize. And then an angel breaks through Prior’s bedroom ceiling.
Engel in Amerika (Angels in America)One stormy night in 1836, Hans Christian Andersen arrives uninvited at the home of his childhood friend Edvard Collin, who is to marry his fiancée Henriette the next day. Andersen has travelled through the wind and the rain to once again confess his love for Edvard. The family provide a frosty reception and the groom himself is out celebrating his last night as a bachelor. Only Henriette feels attracted to the unconventional charm of their guest, who lives in a fantasy world continually surrounded by characters from his own fairy tales. He magically transforms a sober room into a sparkling underwater landscape and castles of otherworldly beauty. And he starts telling his friend’s fiancée the fairy tale of The Little Mermaid: burning with love for a Prince, she wishes to become human and is willing to sacrifice her voice and her home to do so – risking her life.
Andersens Erzählungen (Andersen’s stories)After the death of his wife, Richard lives in seclusion in a gated community. He wants his only daughter Helen to look after him, as he is increasingly in need of care. There has been a long period of silence between father and daughter, but there is more that separates them than unites them. Richard respects neither Helen's idealistic view of her profession as a lawyer nor the choice of her husband, a black intellectual. Helen, in turn, accuses him of evading the challenges of a changing society. «How should we live together?» asks the most-performed Dutch playwright Lot Vekemans in her new play, striking a chord with the times. In the German-language premiere, Juliane Köhler plays alongside Manfred Zapatka.
BlindYasmina Reza, the celebrated author of hit social comedies such as «The God of Carnage» and «Life x 3» and bestselling novels – most recently «Serge» – has written a new play that incisively dramatises the profound problems of understanding that increasingly dominate relations between generations.
James Brown trug Lockenwickler (James Brown wore curlers)Tessa Ensler is a tough defence lawyer. In her early thirties she has managed what very few people believed she could: she has made her way from an underprivileged background to an elite university and on to a top legal firm. She specializes in defending cases of sexual assault. Is her rate of acquittals so high because she is a woman, as is rumoured – or is it because she is so good at spotting holes and contradictions in the statements of the female victims?
Prima FacieAt Whitsun the lion king Nobel invites his subjects to his court for an early summer celebration. The entire animal kingdom gathers – ranging from the crane to the wolf and the bear. Only one animal is missing: the fox called Reineke. As soon as his name his mentioned, the mood of harmony vanishes. One angry accusation follows another and Reinike the fox is charged in his absence with a series of incredible crimes. The cockerel, for example, complains of losing his wife and children – Reineke ate them for supper. When he is eventually put on trial, the accomplished liar – an animal equivalent of Ibsen’s Peer Gynt – manages to pull the wool over everyone’s eyes – man, woman or creature – and slip his neck out of the noose. Eventually he even acquires a whole crowd of followers and is elected Chancellor.
The moral of the story is that not everyone with foxy cunning and a talent for oratory puts those gifts to benevolent use – on the contrary! But how can we tell the difference between truth and lies? How can we avoid being taken in by the peddlers of fake news? How can we remain faithful to our own opinions and values?
Reineke FuchsAfter many years, Gregers returns to his home country. His father, a successful entrepreneur, offers him the opportunity to join the company management, from which he has to retire for health reasons. Gregers refuses and at the same time learns that his father is secretly financially supporting the family of his old friend Hjalmar Ekdal, who lives in the most modest of circumstances, and becomes suspicious. Why is the capitalist suddenly showing himself to be a philanthropist? In his tragedy, Henrik Ibsen shows how the capitalist system has a direct impact on the private sphere and undermines social cohesion. The Norwegian Johannes Holmen Dahl, one of the most sought-after directors in Scandinavia, is now staging his German debut with a major work by his famous compatriot.
Die Wildente (The wild duck)