Sonja Anders becomes the new director of the Thalia Theater Hamburg.
The Hamburg Authority for Culture and Media announced this in a press release.
Anders – currently director of the Hanover Theater – succeeds Joachim Lux in this position, who has been in charge of Thalia since 2009.
Simon Strauss
Editor in the Feuilleton.
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From the 2025/26 season, Anders will form the dual leadership of the house together with commercial director Tom Till.
The director Anne Lenk and the dramaturg Nora Khuon are coming to Hamburg with her as part of the artistic management team.
The signing of Anne Lenk in particular is a pleasant surprise.
A reserved theater woman
Anders is considered a quiet, reserved theater director who has built up a middle-class municipal theater in Hanover.
Anders, who was born in Hamburg in 1965 and is now returning to her hometown, has a taste in theater that corresponds to current moral and political standards and designed her program in Hanover under the keywords openness, diversity and equality, among other things.
After studying German, Anders gained his first theater experience at Kampnagel.
From 1990 she worked first as a dramaturgy assistant, then as a dramaturge at the Deutsches Schauspielhaus in Hamburg and from 1993 to 2000 held the same position at the Staatstheater Stuttgart.
In 2000, Anders moved to the Thalia Theater in Hamburg, where she became head dramaturg for the 2005/06 season.
From 2009 to 2019, Anders worked as chief dramaturge and deputy director at the Deutsches Theater Berlin under Ulrich Khuon.
Since the 2019/20 season she has been director of the Schauspiel Hannover, which has been invited to renowned festivals such as the Berliner Theatertreffen 2022 under her direction.
She wants to ensure “good working relationships”.
After her appointment, she said: "My team and I stand for a solidary, open theater, one that makes people feel concrete and energetically turns to its audience.
A sensual and powerful art, intuitively experienceable and accessible, is our search movement.
A cooperative working relationship, characterized by interest, respect and dialogue, is important to us.
Because good working relationships radiate beyond art.”
Hamburg's Senator for Culture, Carsten Brosda, praised the future director as a theater woman who stands for "a relevant theatre" that opens up "new worlds" for us - with "strong signatures, clear aesthetic statements and courageous dramaturgical impulses". Anders follows Joachim Lux, who made a name for himself not least through inventions such as the "Lessing Days" and established the Thalia Theater at regular intervals as a venue for decisive theater events.