About the work
“In bester Lage” (roughly “Prime Location”) is a comedy by Kristof Magnusson and Gunnar Klack; after “Apokalypse Miau” (2022) it is the second work for the stage the two have written together. Its premiere on 25 September 2026, directed by artistic director Kay Voges, is the first opening night of Schauspiel Köln after its return to the renovated playhouse on Offenbachplatz. The text is published by Verlag der Autoren, together with “Apokalypse Miau” in a volume of two comedies.
Plot
The play is set in an apartment building whose flats belong to owners who have little in common apart from their address. People who will be paying off their mortgage until retirement live next to well-off young people with no debts, families next to singles, the constantly loud next to the almost invisible; parcel couriers and short-term guests from a rental platform pass through the stairwell. The jointly owned property is in need of renovation: the roof leaks and fails fire-safety requirements, yet some owners refuse access, the pipes in the basement are crumbling, and nothing is barrier-free. Because repairs can only be approved unanimously, the owners’ meetings turn into a trial of strength between those who can barely cover the service charges and those already planning solar panels for their balconies.
Cultural significance
The authors use the owners’ association as a model of society: through the dispute over roof, pipes and service charges, the comedy deals with postponed investment, decaying infrastructure and the coexistence of milieus that hardly share anything any more. Schauspiel Köln explicitly linked the play about a building in a permanent state of renovation to its long-awaited return to its home theatre, under renovation since 2012. Kay Voges had already directed the premieres of Magnusson’s “Männerhort” (2003) and “Apokalypse Miau” (2022).