The director enters and announces loudly, “I had a two-hour meeting this morning! Very successful. Structures! Structures and people!” He has not understood anything.

Based on the performer’s own experiences as an assistant director, the lecture performance addresses the workings of power and hierarchy in the theater. With the help of diary entries and voice messages, the performer recalls her time at the Berliner Ensemble. The individual story points to something bigger, to a system: Why do certain authoritarian practices and dynamics seem to be completely accepted in the theater world? Why are issues of emancipation and pluralism negotiated on the stages of this country, while the production process often looks very different?

Hannah Helbig interned at Oliver Reese’s »Der Theatermacher« and since then has been unsure whether it is empowering or problematic to describe herself as a theater maker. She studied applied theater studies and philosophy in Giessen and understands theater as a means of criticism—and fun. With »Strukturen und Menschen – Tagebuch einer Hospitantin 2.0« (Structures and People – Diary of an Intern 2.0), she won the audience award at Körber Studio 2024.