THEATERMASCHINE 2026
- (un)cut ties - 

About the Festival

This year, the Institute for Applied Theatre Studies at Justus-Liebig University Gießen will be hosting the 31st edition of Theatermaschine - a theatre festival organised by students. This is an annual exhibition of the institute’s work, which will take place this year from June 3rd to June 7th. The festival offers students of the BA and MA ATW, as well as MA Choreography and Performance courses the opportunity to present their artistic works to an audience free of institutional pre-selection, in a context where they can receive feedback and criticism in order to further develop their works. These are projects that were developed by artists as part of their studies and training at the Institute of Applied Theatre Studies, where they engage experimentally with performative practices, installations or participatory projects and deal with social, political and cultural topics. The presented works and analytical discussions between the performers and the audience stand at the core of the festival. Through this year's motto - (Un)Cut Ties - we are proposing an exploration of breaking old connections, connecting new ones, questioning values and dealing with concepts of cuts and cohesion in cultural and social contexts.

The festival is the result of aesthetic, organizational, voluntary and democratic collaboration. Throughout the planning process, students acquire a vast variety of self-taught skills - ranging from public relations to festival dramaturgy and financing models. We, the organizing team of Theatermaschine 2026, want to focus on networking different theatre-relevant and adjacent institutions in order to strengthen our institute’s collaborative network.
Over the last two decades, Theatermaschine has become an event that attracts a diverse audience from the independent German theatre scene and enjoys national fame. We aim to expand our platform for communication, interaction and artistic exchange through getting in touch with other institutions of the Hessian Theatre Academy.

We have made it one of our main goals to make Theatermaschine and Applied Theatre Studies inclusive and accessible to a broader audience through a variety of aspects, including free entry to the performances. Our aim is to welcome art and theatre enthusiasts from the entire JLU student body and the city of Gießen, and hopefully, from all over Germany. In an effort to reach this objective, we are opening the doors of our institute stages, as well as collaborating with cultural institutions in the city in order to facilitate performances outside of the institute space and in alternative venues around Gießen.