Nuran David Calis is a director, theater and screenwriter. He studied directing in Munich and produced music clips for hip-hop bands. In 2008, his first feature film, "Meine Mutter, mein Bruder und ich" ("My Mother, My Brother and I"), was released in cinemas, in 2010 he filmed Frank Wedekind's "Frühlings Erwachen" ("Spring Awakening") for ZDF and in 2012 Georg Büchner's "Woyzeck". In 2011, his first novel "Der Mond ist unsere Sonne" was published. He has received numerous awards for his works and productions. He developed his latest play "Die Lücke - Ein Stück Keupstraße" (Schauspiel Köln, 2023) on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the nail bomb attack in Cologne's Keupstraße together with residents and those affected. He lives in Munich.

Dr. Gunnar Decker, born in 1965 in Kühlungsborn, holds a doctorate in philosophy and lives as a journalist and book author in Berlin. From 2008 to 2020 he was editor of the magazine "Theater der Zeit", since 2022 he writes for "Die deutsche Bühne". Author for various newspapers, including "nd" and "Freitag". He has published numerous books, including the biographies "Gottfried Benn. Genie und Barbar" (Aufbau Verlag, 2006), "Franz Fühmann. Die Kunst des Scheiterns" (Hinstorff Verlag, 2009), "Hermann Hesse. Der Wanderer und sein Schatten" (Hanser Verlag, 2012), "Ernst Barlach. Der Schwebende" (Siedler Verlag, 2019), "Houellebecq. Das Ungeheuer" (Matthes & Seitz Verlag, 2022). On the history of the GDR he published: "1965. Der kurze Sommer der DDR" (Hanser Verlag, 2015) and "Zwischen den Zeiten. Die späten Jahre der DDR" (Aufbau Verlag, 2020). In the fall of 2023, Siedler Verlag will publish the biography "Rilke. Der ferne Magier." In 2016 he received the Heinrich Mann Prize for Essay Writing from the Berlin Academy of Arts.

Anna-Katharina Müller majored in theater at Southeast Missouri State University (USA), studied theater at the University of Leipzig and dramaturgy at the Academy of Performing Arts Baden-Württemberg. Stations included Theater Magdeburg, Schauspiel Leipzig and Staatstheater Stuttgart. In 2016, the production "Die Unerhörte" directed by Anna-Elisabeth Frick, which she supervised as dramaturg, won the Körber Studio Prize for Young Directors. From 2017 to 2019, she was assistant dramaturg and dramaturg at Schauspiel Hannover under the artistic directorship of Lars-Ole Walburg, where she was also artistic co-director of the Cumberland venue. In 2018 she was a fellow at the International Forum of the Theatertreffen. From 2019 dramaturg at the Theatertreffen of the Berliner Festspiele, where she headed the Stückemarkt until 2022. Freelance work as a dramaturg for the Athens & Epidaurus Festival, among others. Since 2023 Anna-Katharina Müller has worked as an editor at Suhrkamp Theater Verlag, where she continues her collaboration with Yvonne Büdenhölzer. She has been a member of the Berlin Rat für die Künste (Council for the Arts) since 2022.

Jessica Samantha Starr Weisskirchen began her theater career as an assistant director at the Theater und Orchester Heidelberg and later moved to the Nationaltheater Mannheim. Here she realized her first works during her assistantship (DIE TONIGHT, LIVE FOREVER or DAS PRINZIP NOSFERATU by Sivan Ben Yishai, 2020) and as a director (EIN KÖRPER FÜR JETZT UND HEUTE by Mehdi Moradpour, 2021). In 2022 she opened the season of Theater Dortmund with WOYZECK, and in 2023 she will open the season in the 'Box' of Deutsches Theater Berlin. She is founder of the assistierenden-netzwerk and meanwhile board member of the ensemble-netzwerk e.V. She is initiator and founder of the assistierenden-festival SUMMER UP and jury member of the Prozessförderung of the Fonds Darstellende Künste. In 2022, she successfully completed the Master of Arts degree program, Theater and Orchestra Management, at the HfMDK in Frankfurt am Main. This year, the Kulturpolitische Gesellschaft is publishing the anthology "Systemkritik! Essays für eine Kulturpolitik der Transformation" with her article "Nur die Bretter, die die Welt bedeuten".

René Heinersdorff manages the Theater an der Kö in Düsseldorf, the Theater am Dom in Cologne, the Theater im Rathaus in Essen and the Komödie im Bayerischen Hof in Munich. Since August 1, he has also been the artistic director of the state theater of Rheinland-Pfalz, the Schlosstheater Neuwied.

He is also employed as an actor and director at large private theaters in Hamburg, Berlin, Braunschweig, Frankfurt, Dresden, Karlsruhe and Stuttgart. He has directed nearly 200 premieres and written 20 plays that have been performed throughout Germany and also in other European countries. He is among the 10 most popular authors in the categories of audience and number of performances in the 2022 statistics of the Deutsche Bühnenverein. He has been a member of the PEN Club since 2023.

Cornelius "Corny" Littmann is an entrepreneur, theater owner and former club president of FC St. Pauli. On August 8, 1988, he opened the Schmidt Theater on the Reeperbahn, on September 1, 1991, Schmidts Tivoli was added and on June 6, 2015, Schmidtchen. He became known nationwide in the early 1990s as Mr. Schmidt in the Grimme Award-winning "Schmidt Mitternachtsshow" on NDR television. He has appeared on stage in various Schmidt productions, most recently in the musical comedies "Die Königs vom Kiez" and "Die Königs schenken nach!", and has also directed, among others, the successful production "Heiße Ecke" - Das St. Pauli Musical, which has been shown at Schmidts Tivoli since 2003. In addition, he directed the world premiere of the Kreisler opera "Das Aquarium oder Die Stimme der Vernunft" at the Volkstheater Rostock in 2009. Corny Littmann has received several awards for his activities, including "Hamburg Entrepreneur of the Year," the Max Brauer Prize from the Alfred Toepfer Foundation, and "Optimist of the Year." He was honored with the Maneo Award for his commitment against homophobia and received the "VelsPol Honorary Award for Equality and Acceptance in Society and especially in the Police". In 2019, he founded the non-profit Corny Littmann Foundation for Art and Culture.

Theresa Schütz, born 1986, theater scholar and theater journalist. After studying German Literature and Cultural Studies (BA) at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and Theater Studies (MA) at Freie Universität Berlin and Université Paris-8, she worked as a research assistant at the Collaborative Research Center Affective Societies. Dynamics of Living Together in Moving Worlds at the Free University of Berlin. As part of this, she completed her PhD in 2021 on strategies of audience engagement in contemporary immersive theater ("Theater der Vereinnahmung," Berlin 2022). She has continued her work at the SFB since 2021 as a postdoctoral researcher with a project on forms of life of artist collectives.

Since 2013 she has also been writing regularly in theater journalism, primarily for the magazine Theater der Zeit, and since 2022 also for nachtkritik.de. In 2019/20, she was a participant in the first Academy for Contemporary Theater Journalism, sponsored by the Bündnis internationaler Produktionshäuser.

After studying theater studies and German language and literature, Dorothee Starke was initially employed at various municipal and state theaters as a dramaturge and press officer before establishing and leading the Theater im Fischereihafen GmbH in Bremerhaven as managing director and artistic director from 1997-2008. From 2008 - 2016, Dorothee Starke was director of the Theater Hameln. Since May 2016, she has headed the Bremerhaven Cultural Office.

From 2000-2022, Dorothee Starke held a lectureship on cultural financing and sponsorship in the Cultural Management course at Bremen University of Applied Sciences, which was discontinued in 2022. She has written various papers and publications on the topic of " Sponsoring and Medium-Sized Businesses".

Dorothee Starke is president of INTHEGA (Interest Group of German-Speaking Cities with Guest Theaters).

Nina de la Chevallerie, born in 1974, lives in Göttingen, and studied German and Cultural Studies (M.A.). She began her theater career as a director at the Staatstheater Darmstadt and has been producing and directing projects in the independent scene since 2000. Her productions have been shown in the Salon des Refusès at Documenta XXII, among others. In 2009, she founded the independent theater boat people projekt together with the author Luise Rist, and in 2018 her own venue WERKAUM was opened. Since then, she has increasingly focused on her work as a producer, also in international co-productions. In her work, she combines the balancing act between digital advancement of theater work and sustainable and access-oriented cultural operations. Her lecturing activities on transcultural theater work led her to the HBK Braunschweig, among others. After eight years of involvement in cultural policy on the board of LAFT Lower Saxony, she has currently been a board member of the Bundesverband Freier Darstellende Künste since 2021.

Amelie Deuflhard was artistic director of Sophiensæle (Berlin) from 2000 to 2007. In 2004/05 she was part of the artistic direction of "Volkspalast", a festival-like performance of the deconstructed Palast der Republik. Since 2007 she has been artistic director of Kampnagel (Hamburg), Europe's largest production center for the independent performing arts. With EcoFavela Lampedusa Nord, she initiated a living and action space for refugees in 2014. The project has found its extension at Kampnagel in the award-winning encounter space Migrantpolitan. Amelie Deuflhard was part of the curatorship of four of Theater der Welt 2017. She is the author of numerous publications and regularly holds teaching positions at universities. For her work, she was awarded the Caroline Neuber Prize in 2012 and the Insignia des Chevaliers des Arts et Lettres in 2013. In 2018, she received the European Cultural Manager of the Year award.

Hannah Ma has roots in Hongkong and Berchtesgaden. Hannah Ma works as a performer, choreographer, curator and producer and has published several artistic-philosophical texts and an interdisciplinary publication. Hannah Ma's artistic practice stays significantly in the postmigrant context and focuses on intersectional storytelling and the representation of multiperspectival narratives in terms of content. Hannah Ma's sculptural choreographies explore structural marginalization mechanisms and create poetic parallel universes whose cosmologies are informed by diversity mainstreaming, empowering feminist action, and gender equity. In addition to working in the performing arts, Hannah Ma works in the field of hospice care and as a coach for somatic transformation and decolonization processes. The work of hannahmadance stands for productions in the field of tension between art, activism and cultural politics, oscillating between performance, installation and dance work. The core concern of the work is to work on a cultural landscape that is sensitive to discrimination and to develop instruments for anti-racist, anti-classist, diversity-sensitive choreographing.

Carena Schlewitt was born in Leipzig in 1961. Since 2018, she has been the artistic director of HELLERAU - European Center for the Arts in Dresden.

She was Director of Kaserne Basel from 2008-2018 and Artistic Director of the Basel International Theater Festival (since 2012). She studied theater at the Humboldt University in Berlin and worked at the Academy of Arts in East Berlin from 1985 to 1993. She worked as dramaturge, curator and deputy artistic director at various independent production houses (Podewil Berlin; FFT Düsseldorf; HAU Berlin) and at international festivals (Theater der Welt; HAU Berlin).

The focal points of her work have included the transformation processes in East Germany, Eastern Europe and China and the development of theater in Poland, France and Italy as well as live art and performance art. She has served on various juries, including for the "Impulse" festival; for the German-Polish expert panel of the Kulturstiftung des Bundes as well as for the "Doppelpass" program of the Kulturstiftung des Bundes; she was a member of the expert commission of the Swiss cultural foundation Pro Helvetia.

Carena Schlewitt is a member of the Saxon Academy of Arts, the Saxon Cultural Senate and a member of the Expert Advisory Board for Performing Arts and Music at the Cultural Foundation of the Free State of Saxony.