Festivals 2026

Puls & Peilung
May 14–17, 2026
Student Festival of the Ernst Busch University of Theater Arts Berlin, Department of Contemporary Puppetry

Over four days, the festival Puls & Peilung presents the diversity and artistic signatures of the student in the contemporary puppetry department of the Ernst Busch University of Theater Arts Berlin.It features premieres of thesis productions, creations, work-in-progress presentations and guest performance from international partner university departments. The festival offers the audience an exclusive look at an extraordinary course of study as well as into the creative development of young artists.

FIGURE IT OUT
Meet-Up and Showcase for Puppet Theater
September 10–13, 2026

FIGURE IT OUT travels between Berlin, Leipzig and Stuttgart each year and provides a platform for current developments in puppet theater. The edition in September 2026 will present productions that look for inclusive forms of expression in tandem with puppets and objects and that integrate the tools of accessibility in their aesthetic: alongside guest performances from France and Czechia, verwurzelt (rooted), the new in-house production of Schaubude Berlin for blind, visually impaired and sighted children ages 4 and up will be premiered.

Theater der Dinge
Festival for contemporary puppet- and object theater
October 30–November 5, 2026

15th Anniversary Edition

The international festival Theater der Dinge is one of the most important German festival for contemporary puppet theater. It takes place for the 15th time in 2026 and will celebrate its anniversary with the thematic focus “the world as a model”: Dreamland by Théâtre Rude Ingénierie from Québec features New York’s amusement park Coney Island in its heyday as a large-scale kinetic object installation while in the theater series Transport, six European puppet theaters deal with logistics, tourism and ecology using 3D printed miniature worlds.  Guest performances from across all of Europe and encounter format round out the schedule of programming at multiple venues across Berlin.