Hannes Becker
Hannes Becker, born in 1982 in Frankfurt am Main, author and translator. Masters in Contemporary German Literature, American Studies and History (HU Berlin), B.A. Literary Writing (Deutsches Literaturinstitut Leipzig). Was editor of EDIT – Papier für neue Texte in Leipzig, a research assistant at the Zentrum für Literatur- und Kulturforschung Berlin (ZfL) and a guest lecturer at the Deutsche Literaturinstitut Leipzig. Has translated theatre and stage texts from English into German by Pamela Carter, Caryl Churchill, Tacita Dean, Lucy Kirkwood, Jerry Lieblich, Matthew Lopez, Alexander Manuiloff and Tom Wells as well as poetry by Rosmarie Waldrop and Charles Reznikoff. Writes his own radio plays, theatre plays and stories, most recently: “Theater der Nacht” (theatre play, premiere: 25.19.19, Lichthof-Theater Hamburg, D: Henri Hüster); “Die Symptome von Ingolstadt” (radio play, broadcast premiere 05.10.18, BR 2, D: Henri Hüster); “Der Roman in den Büschen” (story), in: CINEMA # 65, Marburg: Schüren 2020.
Barbara Anna Bernsmeier
Barbara Anna Bernsmeier, born in 1985, studied General and Comparative Literature, Slavic Studies and Contemporary German Literature in Munich. A DAAD scholarship then brought her to the State University of Orenburg in the southern Ural. After completing her studies, she was a language assistant for the Goethe Institut at the State University of Novosibirsk. From 2013 to 2015, she was a scholarship-holder in the programme “Robert Bosch Culture Managers in the Russian Federation” at the Agency for Cultural Initiatives in Volgograd. There, she initiated international culture programmes and meetings especially in the areas of theatre, literature and art in public space. Since 2015, Barbara has lived in Berlin and worked as a culture and project manager. She coordinates culture and education projects between Germany, Poland, Russia and the countries in the Eastern Partnership and is head of the Internationale Bilderbuchfestival. In 2017-2018, with Drama Panorama, she produced the German-Russian co-production “67/871. 67 Geschichten aus 871 Tagen der Leningrader Blockade”.
Henning Bochert
Henning Bochert. After graduating from University of Arts Berlin (MA in Acting), Henning performed in productions in Berlin, Frankfurt am Main, and Zurich. Since 1996, he has translated mainly film scripts and subtitles and dramatic literature, e. g. plays by Eve Leigh, Dawn King, Carlos Murillo, George Brant, Dead Centre, Adam Rapp, Neil Simon, Martin Heckmanns, Christoph Hein, Ingrid Lausund. Since 2013, he is on the board of Drama Panorama, and since 2014, he directs – together with Barbora Schnelle – the festival Ein Stück: Tschechien (New Czech Theatre). In the panorama #1 series, he directed, again with Barbora, the events on Multilingualism in Theatre. Henning Bochert is a certified translator and has received numerous grants from the Deutscher Übersetzerfonds, the Goethe Institute, the VG Wort, the Berlin Senate. A few years in Los Angeles brought experience as a dubbing translator and feature film director. He is a board member of the artists network raum4-netzwerk für künstlerische alltagsbewältigung, mainly as a dramaturge for international productions, and also a member of VTheA, Weltlesebühne, The Fence, VdÜ and BDÜ. He writes poetry, prose and texts for theatre, such as Permeance (2021) or Viktors Visionen (2017). Most recently published: Die Rose im Sand (Dörlemann, Zürich 2023). More information at: www.henningbochert.de; translation agency: www.bochert.com
Dr. Charlotte Bomy
Dr. Charlotte Bomy has a PhD in Theatre Studies and is a theatre translator. Her research focuses on contemporary German-language drama, the relationship between image and text in the performing arts, political theatre and the staging of protest. As a surtitler, she has worked on over thirty productions on tour in France at the Théâtre National de Chaillot, MC93, Nuits de Fourvière, Festival Premières à Strasbourg, TNS, among others. She has also translated numerous German-speaking authors into French, including Ingrid Lausund, Darja Stocker, Sasha Marianna Salzmann and Maxi Obexer.
Irina Bondas
Irina Bondas studied Interpreting and Political Science in Leipzig and, after studying and working in various places such as Edinburgh, New York and Lviv, now lives and works in Berlin as a freelance translator and conference interpreter for Russian, English and Ukrainian. She was the recipient of a scholarship from the German Academic Scholarship Foundation. In the area of Translation Studies, she has researched and published on language and cultural transfer in theatre, specifically on theatre interpreting. She has worked for many theatres and international theatre and film festivals, including the Berlinale, DOK Leipzig, goEast Wiesbaden, Theater der Welt, Thalia Theater, Staatsoper Berlin, Berliner Festspiele, Staatstheater Dresden, internationales literaturfestival berlin and the poesiefestival berlin. She received a special mention at the Wiesbadener Kurier’s translation prize for her translation at NEUE STÜCKE AUS EUROPA 2012. Besides theatre, she translates poetry, short prose and academic texts in the humanities. Her mini-drama Gipfeltreffen premiered at the Schauspielhaus Bochum in 2010.
Cornelia Enger
Cornelia Enger studied Translation Studies for the languages English and Spanish in Heidelberg and Germersheim and, as part of her Masters thesis, translated a play by Denis Johnson. She is employed full-time in Berlin as a subtitler for film and TV and works freelance as a translator of theatre and literature. Before and during her studies, she completed internships in directing at theatres in Heidelberg, Mannheim and Bielefeld, and in 2015 managed a surtitling project at the Theater und Orchester Heidelberg. Member of the subtitling association Untertitelforum AVÜ e.V.
Dr. Anna Galt
Dr. Anna Galt is a freelance editor and translator from German to English. She was born in Dublin, Ireland, where she studied German, English (BA) and Literary Translation (MPhil) at Trinity College. She came to Berlin in 2008 with a DAAD scholarship, where she was an associate member of the graduate school Interart at the FU Berlin until she completed her PhD on contemporary German theatre in 2011. From 2012-2015, she worked with Aufbruch prison theatre as an assistant director and then as a dramaturge, and also gave playwriting workshops in juvenile prison. She has been a freelance translator of literature, academic texts, film and theatre since 2007, mainly in the area of surtitling. Since 2012, she has translated the surtitles for countless German productions into English all over Germany. She has translated the surtitles for the repertoire of the Maxim Gorki Theater Berlin and the Deutsche Oper Berlin on an ongoing basis, and currently the Münchner Kammerspiele. In 2014, her translation of Hartmut Böhme’s Fetishism and Culture was published by de Gruyter.
Dr. Yvonne Griesel
Dr. Yvonne Griesel, born in Geneva, works as a freelance surtitler, translator and interpreter. With her company SPRACHSPIEL, she has specialised in the translation of foreign-language productions for festivals and touring productions, and works with theatres and festivals such as the Münchener Kammerspiele, the Ruhrtriennale, Theater der Welt, the Volksbühne, the Residenztheater in Munich, and many more. She translates for Henschel Schauspiel, Rowohlt Verlag, Alexander Verlag and Theater der Zeit from Russian and French to German. She also a member of the board in Drana Panorama e.V. Yvonne Griesel is a qualified interpreter for Russian and French and completed a doctorate on surtitling in theatre at the Humboldt University, where she taught for seven years. Publications include: Translation im Theater (2000, Peter Lang Verlag), Die Inszenierung als Translat (2007, Frank und Timme Verlag). Welttheater verstehen (2014, Alexander Verlag) as well as numerous articles in international journals. www.sprachspiel.org
Dr. Carola Heinrich
Dr. Carola Heinrich, born in Timişoara, Romania, studied Romance Languages, Italian and Communication Studies at the LMU Munich and Universidad de la Habana. She completed a PhD in Romance Languages at the University of Vienna and also worked at the Institute for Cultural Studies and Theatre History (IKT) at the Austrian Academy of the Sciences during her dissertation. Her research topics include theatre and film in Cuba and Romania, remembrance culture and cultural translation. She is currently a lecturer in German Language and Literature at the Comenius University in Bratislava, while also continuing to be active in academic research. She translates plays from Spanish and, in collaboration with the Goethe Institute and the Austrian Culture Forum, organises readings and cultural events.
Sabine Heymann
Sabine Heymann is a culture journalist, theatre critic and translator. From 2001 to 2017 she was director of the interdisciplinary cultural studies Centre for Media and Interactivity (ZMI) at Justus Liebig University Gießen. After finishing school, she interned at a newspaper and studied German and Romance Philology at the University of Gießen, was an assistant director at the WDR (television drama) and from 1980 was culture correspondent in Rome for Theater heute, the Frankfurter Rundschau, Hessische Rundfunk, WDR and Deutschlandfunk for fifteen years. In 1995, she returned to Germany and first worked as a curator of the events programme at the Bundeskunsthalle Bonn for the exhibitions Sarkis, Im Lichte des Halbmonds, Moderna Museet Stockholm, Claes Oldenburg, Future Garden. From 1996-1998 personal assistant to the President of Gießen University and from 1998 she was significantly involved in setting up the ZMI as media specialist and was its director from 2017. She continued to publish as a journalist after she returned from Italy. Sabine Heymann translates theatre texts, prose and non-fiction from Italian, French, Spanish and English. Being very familiar with the theatre scene in Italy and China, she has also worked on many international festivals, projects and conferences as an academic/artistic consultant and dramaturg. She has also taught and given presentations at the F.U. Berlin, the University of Mainz, the University of Frankfurt am Main, the Department of German Studies and Applied Theatre Studies at the University of Gießen, the University of Pavia, the Shanghai Theatre Academy, numerous times at the German-Italian Centre for European Excellence Villa Vigoni (Corner See), at the Goethe Institute, as well as theatre academies in Europe, the USA and China. See also Wikipedia, ZMI, Youtube.
Mehdi Moradpour
Mehdi Moradpour, was born in 1979 in Tehran, studied Physics and Industrial Technology in Nur and Qazvin in Iran, and from 2004, Spanish Studies, American Studies and Arabic Studies in Leipzig and Havana. He is an author, translator and interpreter for Farsi and Spanish in Berlin. In 2013, he was nominated for the Munich Prize for German-language Drama with his play reines land. In 2015, he was awarded the Jury Prize at the Third Playwright Competition at the Theater St. Gallen und Konstanz for mumien. ein heimspiel. His music theatre play chemo brother premiered in spring of 2016 at the Deutsche Oper Berlin. For his play türme des schweigens, he was awarded the Playwrights in Exile Prize in 2016 by the WIENER WORTSTAETTEN. In 2017, he took part in the Deutsche Literaturfonds e.V.’s “Mobile Working Studio” programme and the DRAMA FORUM at uniT, and also the “Krieg im Frieden” project organised in collaboration between the Literarisches Colloquium Berlin, the Maxim Gorki Theater, the Neues Institut für Dramatisches Schreiben and the Robert Bosch Stiftung.
Franziska Muche
Franziska Muche was born in Zittau, is a freelance dramaturg and translator. She has a diploma in Culture Management (University of Passau) and is a trained actress (Michael Chekhov Studio Berlin/ZAV). From 2003-2007, she was Senior Officer at the Academic Cooperation Association (ACA) in Brussels. In 2007, she moved to the theatre; since 2008 she has translated plays from Spanish to German and, in tandem with Pilar Sánchez Molina, from German to Spanish. Since 2014, she has also worked as a surtitler. To date she has translated plays by authors such as Jose Manuel Mora, Paco Bezerra, Amaranta Leyva, Sergio Blanco, Ángel Hernández, Carla Guimarães; Sibylle Berg, Lutz Hübner und Dirk Laucke. She has surtitled productions for the following authors/directors/ensembles: Mariano Pensotti, Angelica Liddell, La Zaranda, La Resentida, Alberto Villareal, Laura Uribe, Mariana Villegas. As a translator and suritler, she has also worked with Panthea, Sprachspiel, Münchner Kammerspiele, the Goethe Institute Madrid, the Theatertreffen Berlin, the Schaubühne Berlin, New Plays from Europe in Wiesbaden, the Heidelberg Stückemarkt, Osnabrück Theater, and the drama publishers Korn Wimmer and Gustav Kiepenheuer. She also founded and organised the AMBIGÚ series of readings of new international plays (www.ambigu.info). www.franziskamuche.de
Lydia Nagel
Lydia Nagel, born in Wismar, studied Slavic Languages and Cultural Studies in Berlin, Belgrade and Moscow. While a student, she was a member of the Russian-language student theatre group at the Humboldt University for many years. She then managed an intern programme for Ukrainian and Belarusian students in the state of Brandenburg and was a research assistant for Eastern Slavonic Studies at the University of Vienna. In 2014, she was a fellow of the Berlin Übersetzerwerkstatt (Translator’s Workshop) at the Literary Colloquium Berlin. In 2016, she was awarded a working grant at the Künstlerhaus Lukas and the Germersheim translator’s grant at the Künstlerhaus Edenkoben and in 2017 a working grant at the Künstlerhaus Schloss Wiepersdorf. Lydia Nagel lives in Berlin as a freelance translator from various Slavic languages into German. Her main interest is in Ukrainian avant-garde theatre and current trends in Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, Croatian, Serbian, Slovenian and Slovakian drama. In 2011, she planned and organised the Drama Panorama event New Theatre Voices from Serbia, and since then has completed a large number of translations for various publishers, theatres and festivals and led a number of translation workshops. www.lydianagel.de
Matthias Naumann
Matthias Naumann is a writer, translator and publisher. He studied Theatre, Film and Media Studies in Frankfurt am Main, Tel Aviv and Paris. From 2006-2008, with Stefanie Plappert he was Academic Co-Director of creating the Wollheim Memorial, Frankfurt am Main (www.wollheim-memorial.de). He founded the Neofelis Press in Berlin in 2011 with Frank Schlöffel (www.neofelis-verlag.de). He has translated plays from Hebrew into German by Israeli authors such as Hanoch Levin, Yonatan Levy and Maya Arad, and has also worked as a freelance curator and dramaturg for the Tmuna Theatre, Tel Aviv, the Deutsche Theater Göttingen, en/COUNTERs in and between Israel and Germany (Centre for Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv/Künstlerhaus Mousonturm, Frankfurt am Main), among others. Since 2013, he has been a curator for the Mülheimer Fatzer Tage at the Ringlokschuppen Ruhr. His plays have been invited to the Autorentheatertagen (New Playwrights Festival) 2013 at the Deutsche Theater Berlin and have been nominated for the Author’s Prize at the Heidelberg Stückemarkt in 2014. Since 2014, he has been working as a writer with the theatre collective Futur II Konjunktiv (www.futur-ii-konjunktiv.de).
Antje Oegel
Antje Oegel, was born in Dresden, studied Theatre Studies in Leipzig. During her studies, she worked at the theatre festival, euro-scene Leipzig. Shortly afterwards, she was made a member of the artistic team at the Schaubühne Leipzig, where she initiated a number of theatre, dance and literature projects. In 2002, she moved to New York City, where she worked at the off-Broadway theatre, the MCC THEATER, and for four years worked as a literary agent for Bret Adams, Ltd. In autumn 2008, she founded her own theatre agency ANTJE OEGEL INTERNATIONAL and represented American and European playwrights, as well as theatre and film designers and directors. She is also a translator of American plays into German. Antje Oegel lives in Berlin and Chicago. www.aoiagency.com
Dr. Anna Opel
Dr. Anna Opel was born in Limburg/Lahn. She is a freelance writer and translator and lives in Berlin. During her degree in History and Theatre Studies in Berlin, she was the managing director of the Theaterdock in the Kulturfabrik, Lehrter Straße with Gesine Danckwart. In 1996, she was assistant dramaturge at the Deutsches Theater Berlin and was part of the team that founded the Baracke, while also completing her first translations. From 1997-2001, she wrote her doctoral dissertation “Sprachkörper – Sprache und Körper in den Texten von Werner Fritsch, Rainald Goetz und Sarah Kane” (Language Bodies – Language and Bodies in the Texts of Werner Fritsch, Rainald Goetz und Sarah Kane). Afterwards, she worked freelance as an editor, theatre translator and culture journalist for Theater der Zeit, Der Freitag, Zitty, Berliner Zeitung and Missy Magazine. Since 2002, she has translated from British and American English for S. Fischer, Rowohlt and Felix Bloch Erben and is occasionally a drama editor for the Felix Bloch Erben Press. www.annaopel.de
Katharina Rösch
Katharina Rösch is a dramaturg and has been with Schauspiel Essen since the 2023/24 season. She previously worked internationally as a freelance dramaturg in Istanbul (Atelier Galata at Kunststiftung NRW) and Cape Town (at the multilingual Zabalaza festival at the Baxter theatre). She is a member of Drama Panorama: Forum für Übersetzung und Theater e. V. since 2022 and together with Henning Bochert co-creator of the panorama#3 übertheaterübersetzen workshop and publication “Multilingualism on Stage in a Global Context”.
Dr. Iwona Uberman
Dr. Iwona Uberman, born in Wrocław/Breslau in Poland, has a doctorate in Theatre Studies and is Theatre Studies and Scandinavian Languages Scholar and drama translator. She wrote her doctorate at the Ludwig-Maximilians University in Munich on “Auschwitz in the Theatre ‘Embarrassment’. George Tabori’s Holocaust Plays in the Context of the Theatre History at the End of the 1960s”. She has translated plays from German to Polish by authors like Lukas Bärfuss, Felicia Zeller, Sasha Marianna Salzmann, Oliver Kluck, Nino Haratischwili, Lutz Hübner, Ewald Palmetshofer, Henriette Dushe, Ulrike Syha, Lukas Linder, and others. She has been awarded prizes by the EURODRAM Polish committee three times for her translations (O.Kluck, F.Zeller, N.Haratischwili). In 2016, she was was scholarship holder at the Villa Decius in Krakow. As a theatre critic, she writes about the German-speaking region for the Polish theatre media like “Teatr”, “Dialog”, “e-teatr”, and occasionally also about Polish theatre for German media like Nachtkritik and the taz. More here: www.kulturtransfer.eu
Katja von der Ropp
Katja von der Ropp studied Theatre Studies, Modern German Literature and Political Studies in Berlin and Helsinki. She is a co-founder of BRAND – Organisation for Theatrical Field Research e. V. and works as a freelance dramaturg, director and translator (Finnish-German). The main focus of her translation work is theatre translations. She has participated in the German-Finnish ViceVersa translators workshop in Straelen (2015) and twice in the translators workshop in Helsinki (2012, 2014). Her translations “Eisbilder” (Jääkuvia) by Kristian Smeds and “These Little Town Blues” (Lauluja harmaan meren laidalta) by Pipsa Lonka were published in the anthology Eisbilder: Neue Theaterstücke aus Finnland by Theater der Zeit. “These Little Town Blues” won the International Author’s Prize at the Heidelberg Stückemarkt in 2014.
Dr. Barbora Schnelle
Dr. Barbora Schnelle, born in Brno, Czech Republic, studied Theatre Studies and Aesthetics in Brno, Berlin and Vienna and attained her doctorate at the Theatre Studies Department of Masaryk University in Brno with her work on Elfriede Jelinek’s plays (published as: Elfriede Jelinek a její divadlo proti divadlu, Brno: Vetrné mlýny, 2006). She worked as a theatre studies scholar and university assistant in Brno and was co-founder of the “Internet Theatre Journal of Yorick’s Objective Anger”. She has mainly lived in Berlin since 2001 and works as a freelance theatre critic (especially for the Prague magazine Svet a divadlo), journalist and translator (she has translated a many plays by Elfriede Jelinek, Thomas Bernhard, Werner Schwab, among others, into Czech).
Mira Lina Simon
Mira Lina Simon, born in 1988 in Kiel, studied Theatre Studies, Romance Languages and Contemporary German Literature at the Ludwig Maximilians University Munich as well as Dance at the University of Nice Sophia Antipolis. After her studies, she worked for more than six years as a producer and in press and marketing in the performing arts and literature (including for Sasha Waltz & Guests, far° festival des arts vivants Nyon, Haus für Poesie). What she valued most in her work was working with text and translation, which is why she now works as a freelance translator. In 2019, she took part in the Hieronymus programme and the workshop Theater Transfert; in 2020, she received grants from the Georges Arthur Goldschmidt programme and the Berlin Translator’s Workshop. Mira Lina Simon translates prose, poetry and drama from French and lives in Berlin. www.miralinasimon.com
Adina Stern
Adina Stern was born and grew up in Berlin. After finishing her German Abitur, she emigrated to Israel in the 1980s. There, she studied History and Literature (MA) at the University of Tel Aviv and for a long time worked as an editor at the Minerva Institute for German History and at the Goldreich Institute for Yiddish. She was also a representative for the Stiftung Deutsch-Israelisches Zukunftsforum (German-Israeli Future Foundation) and a curator of the Deutsch-Israelischen Literaturtage (German-Israeli Literature Festival) in Israel. Since 2013, she has worked as a freelance editor and translator in Berlin. Projects include supervising the Yearbook for Research on Antisemitism published by the Centre for Research on Antisemitism at the TU Berlin as well as various other publications for the Centre and the Selma Stern Centre for Jewish Studies Berlin-Brandenburg. Furthermore, she is a project manager for various projects in Kreuzberger Agentur für Bildung e. V. (Kreuzberg Agency for Education).
Lisa Wegener
Lisa Wegener was born in Leipzig, has a professional diploma in Translation and then studied Applied Literary Studies at the Freie Universität Berlin (Masters thesis: Intertextuality and Intermediality in Surtitling). In 2011, she was a fellow of the Goldschmidt Programme for German and French literary translators, in 2012, she took part in the Getting Acrozz programme for young theatre translators at the PAZZ Festival. She has lived in Berlin and Brandenburg since 2006 and works as a freelance translator in the languages English, French, Dutch and German. Her translations include works by Marie Nimier, Peter Brook, Dieudonné Niangouna, Jan Fabre and Wim T. Schippers.
Karen Witthuhn
Karen Witthuhn has been a freelance translator since 2001 (English-German) of novels, theatre plays and texts, and film scripts. 1990-1991, studied Modern Languages and European Studies at the University of Bath. From 1991-1994, BA in Drama, Theatre, Film & Television at the University of Bristol. From 1995, she worked as a director, dramaturge and production manager at state theatres, in the independent scene and for the international theatre festivals Theaterformen and PAZZ. In 2012, she was the initiator and organiser of the translators programme Getting Acrozz at the international theatre festival PAZZ at the Oldenburg State Theatre. In 2011, she took part in the Hieronymus Seminar at the EUK Straelen and was a fellow at the Berliner Übersetzerwerkstatt (Berlin Translator’s Workshop) at the LCB Berlin. In 2015, she was awarded a grant from the German Translation Fund. Together with her English-speaking colleagues Lucy Jones and Jenny Piening, she runs the translation agency Transfiction: www.transfiction.eu.