Theater Aachen is a house of art, social debate, encounters, and much more. Is it also a haunted house? After all, its column-lined walls are now turning 200 years old. Wilke Weermann will explore the terribly beautiful stories they might tell. The author and director is known for his atmospherically densely composed theater evenings, citing genres such as science fiction and horror and contrasting them with subtle, subtle humor. He received the 2023 Kurt Hübner Directing Award for his play "Unheim," which explores the debate about housing shortages as a futuristic-comedy ghost story. At Theater Aachen, Weermann will devote himself to the great American master of gothic literature, Edgar Allan Poe, weaving his most gripping tales into a new horror story about dark family secrets and repressed guilt.

The Fall of the House of Usher

Theater Aachen

The Brenner Pass: A swathe of mountains in an idyllic landscape and a border crossing between Austria and Italy. Eighty years ago, a relatively unknown crime took place here. High-ranking Nazi officials like Josef Mengele and Adolf Eichmann fled the Allies' grasp and their just punishment on secret smugglers' routes across the green border, first to Italy and from there to the world. And they had help from the local population. Miriam Unterthiner's new play "Blood Bread" is about the so-called "Rat Line," as this escape route was dubbed. It will receive the Kleist Prize for Young Dramatic Artists in 2025 and will premiere at Theater Aachen. The "Blood Bread" is a metaphor for repressed guilt: The soil on which this happened produces the bread we are meant to eat today. Can we chew, swallow, and digest it? Or can we no longer get it down? Poetically condensed and at the same time concrete, virtuosic and powerful, with subtle humor and great images, "Blutbrot" literally digs into the past and builds a bridge to the present.

Blood bread

Kammer

Influencer Joy presents herself as a »stay at home girlfriend«. While her boyfriend is at work, she produces content. Her topics: Cooking, cleaning, fitness, self-care, beauty. Now she wants to unlock the next level: Marriage! For the perfect wedding, of course, she needs a father to walk her down the aisle. Unfortunately, he turned his back on the family a long time ago to pursue his lifelong dream: To be a clown. Together with a group of like-minded people, he has retreated to a mysterious house to live solely for art, without any political pressure from outside. Joy seeks him out there to win him over for her wedding - and meets his flatmates: the snooty Severin Le Magnifique, who attended the renowned clown school »Le Coq«, the revolutionary Rine, who fights against inequality with the power of the clown, and the shy ex-literary scholar Gelsomino, who still wants to be baptised a clown. When her father Flip refuses to accompany her to the wedding, Joy concocts an intrigue. She wants to split the group and clear the way for her "perfect wedding". But the clowns have other plans ...

Life is a Clown

If we could all just shut up for five minutes, then we would realise how to deal with this broken world. That’s what the three characters in Leo Meier’s newest play, a light and virtuoso, poetic-absurd farce, think – but they simply can’t keep quiet.

Five minutes of silence

One of the great mythical travesties between heaven and hell: Jacques Offenbach used the original myth of Orpheus and Eurydike for his story of dangerous temptations and serious marital problems.

Orpheus in the Underworld

For the first time since 1945, a radical right-wing party has such a noteable number of voters and followers. »Oppenhoff« is dedicated to the fighters of the past and present and helps us understand how to resist in the future, with the unifying power of songs.

Oppenhoff. Mohren. Cohn

The horror story of the bloodthirsty barber from Stephen Sondheim’s »black operetta« tells of the protest against political despotism, corruption and greed for profit with pointed poignancy.

Sweeney Todd

From the mid-1930s onward, Aachen was a "gateway to freedom" through which people dared to escape persecution by the Nazi regime – across the green border to Belgium or Holland, and from there into the world. In Aachen, the refugees encountered both human trafficking networks and a few "silent heroes" who expected nothing in return for their help. Against the backdrop of this historical situation, "Oppenhof. Mohren. Cohn" tells a story of resistance, dissidence, despair, and courage. Inspired by the lives of historical figures such as the former mayor of Aachen, Franz Oppenhoff, the communist Josef Mohren, and the resistance fighter Marianne Cohn, the piece addresses the questions of whether a young woman on the run will be helped, whether a work of art branded as "degenerate" can be saved from destruction, and who stands in solidarity with whom. Protest and partisan songs and new songs combine to form an overall musical concept; a gripping plot is intertwined with documentary material.

Dirk Sarach-Craig

Events

Upcoming events

Sep 17, 2025 - Feb 15, 2026

Blood bread · Theater Aachen

Feb 21 - Apr 17, 2026

Oppenhoff. Mohren. Cohn · Theater Aachen

Past events

Oct 17 - Dec 13, 2025

The Fall of the House of Usher · Theater Aachen

Sep 17, 2025 - Feb 15, 2026

Blood bread · Theater Aachen

About

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