Institute for Applied Theatre Studies

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Institute for Applied Theatre Studies

What is theatre? What could theatre be if it were not only what it currently is? And how can one think of and experiment with a theatre that is always different?

The Institute for Applied Theatre Studies at Justus Liebig University Giessen understands its teaching and research as an attempt never to accept or conclusively define the constitution and functions of theatre as given, but rather to continuously question them, to keep them in a mode of negotiation, and to design them anew each time with risky and necessarily contingent blueprints. Within this experimental framework, theatre becomes a site of confrontation, where our practices and ideas of theatre are repeatedly put at stake; a site of experience, where our ways of seeing, hearing, feeling, and thinking are constantly challenged; and, ultimately, a political site, where the question must always be renegotiated of what kind of community is produced in the interplay between performers and audiences. In short: a site that reinvents itself with every occasion while simultaneously subjecting itself to critical reflection.

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Events

The institute regularly hosts events, such as students’ final performances, festivals, and more. Information about upcoming events is available through our newsletter.

Study

The Institute for Applied Theatre Studies offers a total of three degree programs: the three-year B.A. in Applied Theatre Studies, and the two-year M.A. in Applied Theatre Studies and M.A. in Choreography and Performance.

Festivals, Symposia, and Projects

The Institute organizes festivals, symposia, and projects every year. Each year sees a new edition of Theatermaschine, the Diskurs Festival, and Rough Proposals.

News

For the news and the news archive, please switch to the German version of the website.

The History of the Institute

Founded in 1982 by Andrzej Wirth, the Institute for Applied Theatre Studies was the first university institution in the German-speaking world to combine the study of theatre scholarship with a study of artistic theatre practice. Under Wirth, and with the collaboration of Hans-Thies Lehmann, the institute quickly developed, on the one hand, into a counterpoint to established performing arts schools that understood theatre exclusively as acting based on dramatic texts and trained their students for the conventional city theatre market. On the other hand, it also stood in opposition to other institutes that offered no space for practice and primarily understood theatre studies as theatre historiography. On the newly established rehearsal stage, Wirth and visiting professors such as Heiner Müller, George Tabori, Emma Lewis Thomas, and Robert Wilson, together with the students, explored new forms of theatre that challenged the monopoly of German-speaking city theatres on both the making and the definition of theatre. Shaped by Wirth and his choice of visiting professors, some of the early student works engaged, for example, with the tradition of Brecht’s Lehrstück and minimalist tendencies from the visual arts. At the same time, Lehmann developed a theory of precisely those theatrical approaches that could no longer be captured by the existing theories of representation based on drama and acting. Today, these forms of theatre are known through Lehmann’s conceptualization as postdramatic theatre.

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