Theatre­Days

There is a long tradition of educa­tional theater work at the Birklehof e.V. school in Hinterzarten. Whether in the drama lessons in years 5 and 6, in the artistic profile of years 8 to 10, in the drama subject in year 8, in the liter­a­ture and drama elective or in the drama club — the pupils have numerous oppor­tu­ni­ties to try out their talents on stage.

The Theater-AG regularly devotes itself to plays with high socio-political relevance. These include Daniel Kehlmann’s Die Reise der Verlorenen (The Journey of the Lost), with which the expe­ri­enced boarding school teacher Björn Grimm is making his debut as a director this year.

Since the beginning of October 2022, there has been an inde­pen­dent chil­dren’s and youth theater in Staufen under the name “DIE PFLASTER­HÜPFER”. The theater group was created at the sugges­tion of children who were active in the STAdt­GESchichten. Founder and director of the theater is Andy Müller, one of the ensembles is super­vised by Uta and Simon Stöcklin. As the initiator of this theater group, Faust e.V. is delighted that this offering has been so popular right from the start.

The theater group now consists of six ensembles with around 80 children and young people between the ages of 8 and 18 and a good 20 young adults. As an inde­pen­dent group, DIE PFLASTER­HÜPFER is still open to children and young people who are inter­ested in theater and have time for at least one rehearsal a week. The only require­ment for partic­i­pa­tion in one of the theater groups is member­ship in the “Förderverein für außergewöhn­liche und unter­hal­tende Theaterkultur — FAUST e.V.” Rehearsals take place in the audi­to­rium of the Lilien­hof­schule.

The PFLASTER­HÜPFER have staged several successful produc­tions in the three years of their existence:

2023 One Flew from the Cuckoo’s Nest, The Double Lottchen and Josef ist weg — ein Krip­penkrimi
2024 Das Kaffee­haus, Die Zoover­schwörung, Der kleine Ritter Trenk, Ausgerechnet Kreuzberg — oder Royal meets Rap, Pension Schöller and Eine Weih­nachts­geschichte nach Charles Dickens
2025 Aladdin und die Wunder­lampe, Die Frauen von Mandsworth Hall, Robin Hood, Räuber. Schiller für uns, Die wilden Hühner, Klin­geling das Fest ist hin and Drei Hasel­nüsse für Aschen­brödel.

Rehearsals for the new plays, which will premiere at TheaterTage 2026, have been underway since January.

We emerged from an acting course run by the Volks­bil­dungswerk Bötzingen in 1983. People from different age and profes­sional groups discov­ered their passion for theater and decided not to leave it at a one-off course, but to present their acting skills in public at annual theater evenings. Various members of the group took on the role of director.

In 1990, Christian Schulz was recruited as a theater teacher, who took over the direction on a permanent basis and has contin­u­ously developed the group. Extensive role studies and playful explo­ration of different forms of theater and perfor­mance have been the focus since then and have enriched the indi­vidual skills of the actors over the years. In 2009, Christian Schulz handed over the manage­ment of the group to Holger Geppert.

The group’s trademark is boulevard theater with an Alemannic twist, but not limited to this local dialect. As the name of the group suggests, there is room for every tongue (including High German). Teamwork and ensemble perfor­mance are at the forefront of our theater projects. All partic­i­pants can contribute their ideas and thus contribute to the lively devel­op­ment of the group. We are still closely asso­ci­ated with the Volks­bil­dungswerk Bötzingen and therefore also see it as our task to introduce new players to the stage. The group currently comprises around 20 members, who are either active on stage or backstage, providing sophis­ti­cated tech­nology, an exciting stage set, the right costume and the perfect make-up.

After 40 years of theater work in Bötzingen, we are now organized in our own asso­ci­a­tion.

Unique in Europe — since 2005, the Theater Eurodis­trict BAden ALsace (BAAL), under the direc­tor­ship of theater founder Edzard Schopp­mann, has been running a cross-border bina­tional theater operation based in Offenburg and Stras­bourg, a theater project that is still unique in Europe in terms of its structure and concept. Over the years, the basic Franco-German concept was expanded to include a compre­hen­sive inter­cul­tural orien­ta­tion. The theater now puts on 6 – 8 produc­tions per season.

Theater BAden ALsace is the regional theater of Ortenau and the Eurodis­trict of Stras­bourg- Ortenau with guest perfor­mances throughout the Upper Rhine region and now also in Staufen for the first time. In autumn 2019, the theater in the heart of the Upper Rhine region opened its new venue in the European Forum on the Rhine Neuried.

All of Theater BAden ALsace’s produc­tions deal with inter­cul­tural themes and almost all of its plays are multi­lin­gual. It weaves words, songs, images and movements into a unique theatrical language that makes you forget that there are linguistic and cultural bound­aries. BAAL produc­tions are full of staged disrup­tions that constantly open up new perspec­tives on topics for the audience. Theater BAAL sees its artistic aspi­ra­tions as being linked to the work of Peter Brook, the great theater man and pioneer of inter­na­tional ensemble and theater work.

The main sponsors of the Franco-German theater are the state of Baden-Würt­tem­berg, the Ortenau district, the cities and munic­i­pal­i­ties of Offenburg, Lahr and Neuried as well as the Stras­bourg-Ortenau Eurodis­trict and the Collec­tivité européenne d’Alsace. The theater is one of the main cultural projects of the Alsace Cross-border Coop­er­a­tion Scheme.