Ost-Passage Theater

For a neighborhood theater in the east of Leipzig!

For more than 20 years, the cultural landscape, whose profiling surveys once formed the major city and state theaters, is changing. The model of the public subsidized German subsidy theater is less and less in line with a production order that is based on the primacy of effectiveness, and sorts out all supposedly untidy goods from the value-added chains. In the face of these structural conditions, the idea of ​​starting a theater, viewed from an economic point of view, appears first and foremost a daring undertaking. On the other hand, the enthusiasm in the theater and the desire to play theater is still unbroken.

Especially in Leipzig, a differentiated culture and art scene has developed in the theater sector, which is characterized by a high degree of experimentation and pioneering spirit and thus contributes significantly to the nationwide profiling and magnetic effect of Leipzig as a cultural city. At the same time, production conditions for many cultural workers in the city continue to be very precarious. Existing resources can often not be properly exploited, finished productions are played back and existing audience potentials are exhausted. As an initiative made up of many Leipzig theater enthusiasts, some of whom have been staging stage plays in different parts of the city for more than ten years, we know the difficult conditions of the off-scene and independent groups only too well. And from these experiences, we have been striving for a longer time to consolidate our cultural work and a solid house in order to bring together the samples of the different groups under our direction in a structured way. Under one roof, we want to gather what belongs together: lay people, amateurs and professionals. Following the example of the Dresdener Bürgerbühne or the Rotterdam Wijk Theater, a semiprofessional neighborhood theater is to be created that inspires, involves and moves neighboring neighborhoods.

Above all, it is important for us, beyond a "cultural import", to expose the buried and hidden potential on the ground, to keep the thresholds for participation at all institutional levels low and to be open to the ideas and energies of neighbors, residents and other interested parties , Similar to the old Volksbühne model, it is intended to develop a membership-based and citizen-oriented theater venue that pervades the "dividing line" between audience and actors. And that is not only a space of aesthetic projections, but also socio-cultural stage for the concrete problems and political platform for the legitimate interests of the people of Leipzig. And in this perspective we see our initiative not in competition with the existing institutions of the city theater, but on the contrary, in the form of the district theater in the east of Leipzig, as a necessary and cooperative complement of the same.

Within the theatrical landscape of Leipzig, the "Ost-Passage Theater" is to be established as an important, well-networked co-operation partner, thereby offering the moving and traveling groups another safe haven. Finally, with this approach, we want to play a part in making the theater and playing on and around the stage, the art of theater with its inexhaustible power of imagination and its outstanding potential for reflecting and reflecting on social action, an integral part of socio-cultural education across all strata of the population.