Tilmann Köhler

Born in Weimar in 1979, he trained as a director at the Hochschule für Schauspielkunst Ernst Busch in Berlin from 2001 to 2005. After he graduated, he was engaged as Resident Director at the Deutsches Nationaltheater Weimar. In 2007 his production of «The Pains of Youth» by Ferdinand Bruckner was invited to the Berlin Theatertreffen and his production of Shakespeare’s «Othello» was invited to the festival Radikal jung in Munich. From 2009 to 2016 he was Resident Director at Staatsschauspiel Dresden, where he also ran the Studio. Here he directed Christa Wolf’s «Divided Skies» and Shakespeare’s «Merchant of Venice». His production of Brecht’s «St. Joan of the Stockyards» won him the 2009 Kurt Hübner Prize for Young Directors. In 2013 he made his debut at Oper Frankfurt with Handel’s «Teseo» and has directed there regularly ever since. He has worked consistently together with the Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus since 2016, most recently on «Coriolanus» by William Shakespeare. He has also created works at the Maxim Gorki Theater Berlin, Stuttgart State Theatre, the Deutsches Theater Berlin, the Deutsches Schauspielhaus in Hamburg and Theater Basel. He has also directed productions in São Paulo, at the Moscow Arts Theatre, in Gwangju (Korea) and at the National Theatre Bratislava (Slovakia). Following «The Golden Dragon» for the Taipei Arts Festival (Taiwan) and the world premiere of the «Odyssey» at Staatsschauspiel Dresden, «The World Ripped Apart» is the third time that this director has tackled a work by Roland Schimmelpfennig and the first time that he has directed a production for the Residenztheater in Munich.