About the work
WIR SIND AM LEBEN is a new original German musical by Peter Plate and Ulf Leo Sommer. The book is by Franziska Kuropka and Lukas Nimscheck, while the score is credited to Plate, Sommer and Joshua Lange. It received its world premiere at Berlin's Theater des Westens on 21 March 2026. Plate and Sommer had first conceived the project in 2009 but only returned to it as a full musical in 2024.
Plot
Berlin, 1990. After the fall of the Wall, siblings Nina and Mario leave Wittenberg and move to Berlin. They find a community in a squatted building known as Konsum Hoffnung. Nina dreams of becoming a pop singer, while Mario falls in love with the Cuban dancer Nando. Their mother Rosie unexpectedly re-enters their lives. The excitement of political and personal freedom is gradually set against family conflict and the devastating reality of the AIDS crisis.
Cultural significance
The musical connects the atmosphere of post-Wall Berlin with memory of the AIDS crisis and queer lives during the period. Plate and Sommer describe it as their most personal project and their first completely self-developed musical. This distinguishes it from several of their earlier stage successes, which were based on pre-existing films or literary narratives.