The Schauspiel Hannover together with the Hannover State Opera forms the Lower Saxony State Theatre Hannover GmbH. It offers the public theatre, entertainment and music at five different locations. Besides the Schauspielhaus, these include the Cumberlandsche Bühne, the Cumberlandsche Galerie, and in the old town Ballhof Eins and Ballhof Zwei. Since the start of the 2025/26 season Vasco Boenisch has been intendant of the Schauspielhaus. Spoken theatre in Hannover already had a hard time under George V (1819–1878) at the court theatre, because music determined the artistic events and drama attracted no attention beyond the city's borders. For some decades various changes of intendant did nothing to alter this. Around 1900 there was a great rethinking in the German theatre landscape. Naturalism found its way onto the stages, and ideas of direction, staging and dramaturgy gained value. Hannover's drama missed this step, and so the critic Johann Frerking demanded drastic personnel measures in 1911, which were even implemented. The programme was overhauled and the audience delighted with Schiller, Kleist and Ibsen. A further demand was the spatial separation of opera and drama.
The Schauspiel Hannover is the drama theatre within the Staatstheater Hannover — the building at Opernplatz from 1845 is one of the few preserved Classicist theatre buildings in Germany.
At a glance
- Type
- Theatre
- Location
- Hannover, Germany
More venues in Hannover
- Staatsoper Hannover · Opera house, Hannover
More venues in Germany
- Aalto-Theater · Opera house, Essen
- Admiralspalast · Musical theatre, Berlin
- Alte Oper Frankfurt · Concert hall, Frankfurt am Main
- Altonaer Theater · Theatre, Hamburg
- Anhaltisches Theater Dessau · Multi-genre theatre, Dessau
- Ballhaus Naunynstraße · Theatre, Berlin
- Bar jeder Vernunft · Theatre, Berlin
- Bayerische Staatsoper · Opera house, Munich
- Bayreuther Festspielhaus · Opera house, Bayreuth