Theaterpreis des Bundes 2024

Once again this year, the Theaterpreis des Bundes is honoring venues that aren’t usually at the center of nation-wide public attention. The prize is a deserved recognition for all creative teams that provide space for an artistic approach to issues of our day. With this invitation to have encounters, dialogues and debates, they turn theaters into essential places for our democracy. It’s especially the small and mid-sized venues outside of the big metropolises that are indispensable here. This is why we are encouraging them specifically to apply for the Theaterpreis des Bundes.

Claudia Roth, Minister of State for Culture and the Media

With the Theaterpreis des Bundes, the federal government honors the diversity of theater creation as one of the fundamental pillars of cultural life in Germany, especially as a place for societal reflection, social encounters and artistic innovation.

City theaters and federal state stages, private theaters and guest performance venues as well as production houses of the independent performing arts in the Federal Republic of Germany can apply for this innovation prize, which has been realigned since last year. The prize honors mid-sized and smaller theater house structures, especially beyond the theater metropolises, and their nationally remarkable work in the past years.

The Theaterpreis is awarded to an outstanding program that is characterized by a convincing aesthetic/artistic further development in contemporary questions of (urban) society, multi-perspective audiences, ecological and social sensitivity and/or technological/digital innovations. The specific structural, financial and, if applicable, socio-spatial situation will also be taken into account when awarding the prize.

As established in 2023, the State Minister will confer one award, each respectively endowed with 100,000 euro, in the categories city theaters & federal state stages, private theaters & guest performance venues and independent production houses, as well as – throughout all three categories – the Theaterpreis des Bundes, which is endowed with 200,000 euro.

The prize winners are expected to be announced in September 2024 and honored in the context of an artistic evening program at Haus der Berliner Festspiele on 02 October 2024.

In association with the award gala in the evening, the Internationale Theaterinstitut – Zentrum Bundesrepublik Deutschland will hold a symposium during the day.

Additional information will be published shortly.

The Theaterpreis des Bundes is awarded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media. The project sponsor is the Fonds Darstellende Künste e.V. in cooperation with Zentrum Bundesrepublik Deutschland des Internationalen Theaterinstituts e.V. (ITI).