JETTE STECKEL
Director Born in Berlin in 1982, Jette Steckel studied theatre directing at the Hamburg Theatre Academy from 2003 to 2007 and also worked as a guest listener at the Russian Academy of Theatre Arts, GITIS in Moscow. She staged Nachtblind by Darja Stocker at Thalia in Gaußstraße in 2006 and the production was invited to the Heidelberg Stückemarkt. Her production of Saved by Edward Bond at Thalia in Gaußstraße earned her the Eysoldt Prize for Young Directors and was invited to the Radikal Jung Festival in Munich. In 2007 she was voted Young Director of the Year by Theaterheute magazine and in 2008 she was nominated for the Viennese Nestroypreis in the category of ‘Best Newcomer’. Steckel has worked in cities including Cologne, Vienna and Hamburg. In the summer of 2009, her adaptation of Ilija Trojanow’s novel Die Welt ist groß und Rettung lauert überall had its world premiere at the Salzburg Festspiele and was then performed at Thalia in Gaußstraße, just like her production of Caligula by Albert Camus, a transfer from the Deutsches Theater in Berlin, where she also works regularly. She made her opera debut in Basel in 2013, with Giacomo Puccini’s Tosca. At Thalia she directed Georg Büchner’s Woyzeck, created by Tom Waits, Kathleen Brennan and Robert Wilson. The 2010/11 season saw the premiere of her production of Don Carlos, for which she was awarded a grant by the Berenberg Bank Foundation and the Hamburg Theatre’s 2011 Rolf Mares Prize in the category of ‘Outstanding Production’. From the 2009/10 season to the 2013/14 season, Jette Steckel worked full-time as a director at Thalia. Jette opened the 2014/15 season with Romeo and Juliet, for which she not only worked with actors, such as longtime collaborator Mirco Kreibich: she staged the iconic love story with the additional support of 40 young people from Hamburg, as well as musicians Anja Plaschg (Soap&Skin) and Anton Spielmann (1000 Robota). Jette Steckel was presented with the Faust Award for Die Tragödie von Romeo und Julia. Her production of Ödön von Horváth’s Kasimir und Karoline – Glauben Lieben Hoffen opened in November 2015.
BERND GRAWERT
Tambourmajor Born in 1962, Bernd Grawert studied at the Folkwang Hochschule in Essen before working at the Schauspiel Köln in Cologne, the Düsseldorf Schauspielhaus and with Frank Baumbauer at the Deutsches Schauspielhaus in Hamburg. Grawert, who has lived in Hamburg for many years, is an actor and musician, just as impressive on the piano as he is on the saxophone and guitar. He regularly works at the Schaubühne am Lehniner Platz in Berlin and at the Münchner Kammerspiele in Munich. Grawert has played roles in productions by the likes of Frank Castorf, Karin Beier, Johann Kresnik, Martin Kusej, Jossi Wieler and Andreas Kriegenburg. In 1992 he was awarded the Nordrhein-Westfalen Prize for Acting for his performance as Jean in Dimiter Gottscheff’s production of Miss Julie. Grawert has a long-standing working relationship with director Luk Perceval, which began in 1999 with the Shakespeare marathon BATTLES! at the Deutsches Schauspielhaus and also includes Othello, Lulu live and Troilus and Cressida at the Munich Kammerspiele as well as Maria Stuart and Platonov at the Berlin Schaubühne. He continued to collaborate with Luk Perceval at Thalia in roles including Dmitrij Karamasov in the 2012/13 season production in The Brothers Karamazov and Paul Bäumer in the world premiere of FRONT in March 2014.