We see our house as a space of opportunity. We would like to offer both young artists and established freelance theatre makers good conditions and a productive exchange.

In our co-productions, series and other projects we support production communities and set impulses in the Berlin theatre scene. Since 2016 we have been working on digital transformation in various formats.

Every year in autumn we organise the international festival for contemporary puppetry and object theatre Theater der Dinge (Theatre of Things) – a source of inspiration for current developments in the genre. The topic of last year's edition was: "Unsettling Remains". The topic in this year's edition is "Wiggle Rooms"

A recap of Theater der Dinge can be found on the Schaubude blog where reviews, essays and artistic reactions to festival productions have featured since 2018.

We understand the performing arts as a dialogue between stage happenings and audience. That is why we are committed to providing theatre education and discursive formats to convey artistic processes.

As a necessary basis for the further development of figure and object theatre, we promote aesthetic research without production pressure in the annual Schaubude Residency.

Since May 2020 Schaubude Berlin, together with FITZ Stuttgart and Westflügel Leipzig, has been part of the Alliance of International Production Centres for Figure Theatre (see joint Website).

We are in close contact with institutions, associations and educational bodies of international puppetry and object theatre and related fields.

Overview of our partners

In 2019, Schaubude Berlin and its artistic director, Tim Sandweg, received the ASSITEJ Organiser Award for outstanding commitment to children and youth theatre.

In 2017 the artistic work of Schaubude Berlin was awarded the Federal Theatre Prize. In the explanatory statement it reads:

“With its diverse co-operations, festivals, promotions of young talent, its offers for all age groups, its genre crossings and its determined search and research movements into digital worlds, this small house is one of Berlin's creative engines.”

The building at Greifswalder Strasse 81-84 was constructed as a Karstadt department shop in 1929 according to the plans of the Charlottenburg architect Ernst Schneckenberg and is now a listed building. In 1949, “Filmbühne Atlas” was located here. In 1972, the state-run “Puppentheater Berlin,” the largest ensemble puppet theatre in the German-speaking countries at the time, moved in. It was wound up in 1991.

In 1993 the newly founded, Senate-funded Schaubude Berlin finally moved into the premises. The early years of the theatre were shaped by Gerd Taube, under whose direction the independent Berlin figure and puppet theatre scene found an artistic home and a regular evening programme for adults was established.

Silvia Brendenal, who ran the house between 1997 and 2015, opened up the Schaubude artistically to the visual imagery of the “théatre d'objets” (theatre of objects). She founded numerous festivals, including “Theater der Dinge” (Theatre of Things) or the first figure and object theatre festival for the very young, “Unter dem Tisch.”

From 2015 Tim Sandweg continued the tradition of the festival “Theater der Dinge” as artistic director. The first edition for which he was responsible, “Digital is better” (2016), was the prelude to a further opening of the programme towards digitality, robotics and hybrid forms between the performing and visual arts.