Badabamdabam.

This is how the quartet trills as they march onto the stage.

You can hear a potpourri of popular songs, from “Weekend and Sunshine” to the folk song “The Cuckoo and the Donkey”.

In the middle of it all were thoughts about God and the world.

Under the title “Thoughts are free”, it is the opening contribution by the Theaterhaus ensemble to the Sommerwerft Festival on the banks of the Frankfurt Main, which is taking place for the 20th time this year.

In the second Corona summer, it is anything but a niche event. In 2020, under pandemic restrictions, only eleven festival days with a limited number of guests were possible. Only 15,000 visitors dared to venture, instead of 110,000 before, due to an infection-free process, at least one successful organization could still be assessed.

A year later, it is about a piece of normality, with a further refined hygiene concept, which includes the abandonment of the theater tent and the Bedouin tent.

On the extensive area east of the Flößerbrücke there are two theater areas, a music stage for two to three concerts a day and a children's and youth stage with two performances each day from Friday to Sunday.

In a workshop area there are lessons from yoga to theater and music to rhythmic gymnastics.

Up to 2000 visitors can move freely between the pavilions, wagons and booths in front of the high-rise building of the European Central Bank, provided they can prove a double vaccination or recovery or have completed a test.

Furious choreography

The evening program for the opening was hosted by the Antagon Theater with its classic "Package", a furious choreography about an open-plan office, on whose occupants money and career exert a hypnotic effect. With “Frame Games” the Frankfurters will also play on the theater square on the festival grounds at the Weseler Werft on July 28th and 29th, when it gets dark. You can then see a journey through countries and epochs, on which the actors fluctuate between dynamism and agony. “Time Out” (August 6th and 7th) has long been a classic, in which a giant clock with an upside-down rotating pointer and a floating embryo serve as a warning sign of a threatening countdown.

It is a promising repertoire on the main stage that Antagon principal Bernhard Bub put together for the 17 days of the festival, although guest ensembles are no longer as easy to win as before.

Some have stopped completely, others have locked themselves up in the previous lockdown phase.

The Free Stage Wendland will come with “Moby Dick” (July 30th and 31st) to go whaling with a bus.

In “Are you ready?” (August 1st) the Theater Fragile plays through emotions from anger to sadness with song, dance and mask play, the Stilt Theater Grotesk Maru wants to live the old dream of weightlessness in “Swarm” (August 2nd) meet with pictures.

The offer for children has been expanded from three to 18 pieces with ensembles from all over Hesse.

With a drone in the sky

For program curator Sebastian Bolitz, the summer shipyard, where graffiti and art objects can also be seen, is responsible not only for the emotional connection but also for communicating social and political processes. In the performance "Patterns of Perceptions", for example, the topic of digitization and observation will be made visible through dancing - and with a drone in the sky. In “My Meeting with Leonardo di Caprio” love is played out on the clarinet in modern urban society.

The festival is made possible by funds from the state program “Ins Freie”, the city's cultural office, the Frankfurt / Rhein-Main cultural fund and smaller donors.

The fact that the organizers manage with a budget of 250,000 euros instead of the regular 700,000 euros is thanks to the work of around 200 regional helpers and 60 international volunteers.

At the opening, Mayor Uwe Becker (CDU) paid tribute to the growth of the festival from a delicate plant to a colorful meadow.

In its diversity it is a mirror of Frankfurt as the most international city in Germany.

This will be followed by the Women's Theater Festival (September 13-19).

The summer shipyard festival lasts until August 8th.

Information on the program is available at

sommerwerft.de