Cassiopeia Theater

Claudia Hann founded the theater in 1989 as a touring company for the art of puppetry. Since 1995 it has been led by her and Udo Mierke together. In 1999 the touring theater gained a permanent home, the Cassiopeia Bühne in Cologne, which is committed to the same mission. It was originally located in Cologne's Old Town and moved to larger premises in Köln-Holweide in 2008. Alongside its own productions, the venue also hosts guest productions.

As an author-driven theater, the ensemble stages classic stories and fairy tales in new dramatisations, and the source material is not necessarily a theatrical text. It also presents stagings of contemporary literature, above all poetry. Because the in-house productions are developed from scratch for the stage, they are mostly world premieres. Works for children include "Das hässliche Entlein" (The Ugly Duckling) and "Kranichmädchen. Geschichte vom Glück" (Crane Girl: A Story of Happiness). Works for adults include "Amor und Psyche. Ein Spiel mit Masken für Mann und Frau" (Cupid and Psyche: A Play with Masks for Man and Woman) and "Ich habe die Uhr geputzt. Theater aus Lyrik" (I Cleaned the Clock: Theater from Poetry).

A particular focus of the Cassiopeia Bühne is the use of artefacts and art objects as performers, in both the evening and the family programme. In its approach, the theater aims, by its own account, at "looking at what is essential" ("Blick aufs Wesentliche"). For the team, this phrase expresses the goal and the standard of quality it sets for its own work.

The Cassiopeia TheaterVerlag was founded in 2004. It distributes texts by ensemble members as well as by friendly theaters and writers. In 2005 it published the first Epidram, a new literary genre in the form of a theater audiobook. In 1992, Udo Mierke received an award in Royan (France) from the European Commission for new approaches to media education. The theater has been invited to national and international festivals many times and has been repeatedly nominated for the Kölner Kinder- und Jugendtheaterpreis. In 2006 it was the only puppet theater in the evening programme among 267 productions nominated for the Theaterzwang NRW.