Faust-Festspiele Pegnitz
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| Faust-Festspiele Pegnitz e. V. | |
| Founded | 1995 |
|---|---|
| Legal form | Registered association (eingetragener Verein) |
| Member of | Verband Bayerischer Amateurtheater |
| Location | |
| Headquarters | Pottenstein |
| Country | Germany |
|
| |
| Links | |
| Website | faust-festspiele.eu |
| Social media | Facebook · Instagram |
The Faust-Festspiele (Faust Festival), whose organising association is registered as Faust-Festspiele Pegnitz e. V., are an open-air theatre festival held each summer since 2022 at the Schüttersmühle in the Klumpertal valley near Pottenstein in Franconian Switzerland, Upper Franconia, Germany. Founded in Kronach in 1995, the festival performs Goethe's Faust I every season alongside other classics of world drama in popular, accessible versions.[1][2]
History
The festival grew out of the Werkbühne Kronach, founded in 1979 as the school theatre of the Kaspar-Zeuß-Gymnasium, which developed into a student theatre and later, under Daniel Leistner, into an independent theatre. In 1994, for the Bavarian state exhibition on Lucas Cranach, the Werkbühne staged an open-air Faust I directed by Leistner in the arsenal courtyard of Rosenberg Fortress. Commissioned by the town and district of Kronach, Ulrike Mahr and Leistner then founded the Faust-Festspiele Kronach in summer 1995 with an open-air Faust I; Leistner has been the festival's artistic director (Intendant) since then. According to the festival, the performances at the fortress drew an average of 15,000 spectators a year.[2]
In 2015 the town of Kronach ended the festival in order to establish a different kind of theatre. Uwe Vogel, an actor in the Kronach company from Pegnitz, brought the festival to Pegnitz: in 2016 it was held on a small scale in the gymnasium of the local grammar school, and from 2017 to 2019 as a large open-air theatre on the Schlossberg. As setting up and dismantling the site there each year proved too costly, the festival accepted an offer of a site at the Schüttersmühle in Pottenstein at the end of 2019, near the Teufelshöhle show cave. The planned 2020 start was prevented by the COVID-19 pandemic, as was a 2021 season; the organisers used the time to develop the site, and the first season in Pottenstein took place in 2022.[2]
Repertoire
The festival presents tragedies, comedies and farces by authors such as Goethe, Schiller, Shakespeare and Kleist as well as popular stage classics such as Charley's Tante and Im weißen Rössl. Its choice of the Faust theme in Pottenstein is linked to a local legend of a robber knight who made a pact with the devil in the Teufelshöhle, which Leistner adapted as Der Pottensteiner Teufelspakt (2022).[1] For the 125th anniversary of the Fränkische-Schweiz-Verein, founded at the festival site in 1901, the 2026 season included Der Schmied von Pottenstein, based on another Pottenstein legend, and August von Kotzebue's comedy Der Wirrwarr.[3] Faust I (1995) and Faust II (1998–2006) were given again in later seasons.[4]
| Year | Title | Author | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1995 | Faust I | Johann Wolfgang von Goethe | Performed again in every season since |
| 1996 | Scherz, Satire, Ironie und tiefere Bedeutung | Christian Dietrich Grabbe | |
| 1997 | Der Alpenkönig und der Menschenfeind | Ferdinand Raimund | |
| 1997 | Amiwiesen | Kerstin Specht | |
| 1998 | Faust II | Johann Wolfgang von Goethe | Performed again each season until 2006 |
| 1998 | Lysistrate oder Kein Sex in Griechenland! | Aristophanes | |
| 1998 | Scherz, Satire, Ironie und tiefere Bedeutung | Christian Dietrich Grabbe | Revival |
| 1999 | Claudine von Villa Bella oder Krach um Claudine | Johann Wolfgang von Goethe | |
| 1999 | Die Mitschuldigen | Johann Wolfgang von Goethe | |
| 2000 | Der zerbrochne Krug | Heinrich von Kleist | |
| 2000 | Die Dame Kobold | Pedro Calderón de la Barca | |
| 2001 | Einen Jux will er sich machen | Johann Nestroy | |
| 2001 | Scherz, Satire, Ironie und tiefere Bedeutung | Christian Dietrich Grabbe | Revival |
| 2002 | Peer Gynt | Henrik Ibsen | |
| 2002 | Hamlet | William Shakespeare | |
| 2003 | Das Wintermärchen | William Shakespeare | |
| 2003 | Die deutschen Kleinstädter | August von Kotzebue | |
| 2004 | Ein Sommernachtstraum | William Shakespeare | |
| 2004 | Warten auf Godot | Samuel Beckett | |
| 2005 | Der Barbier von Sevilla | Pierre Beaumarchais | |
| 2005 | Die Räuber | Friedrich Schiller | |
| 2006 | Die Hochzeit des Figaro | Pierre Beaumarchais | |
| 2006 | Turandot, die chinesische Prinzessin | Friedrich Schiller after Carlo Gozzi | |
| 2007 | Der Diener zweier Herren | Carlo Goldoni | |
| 2007 | König Ödipus | Sophocles | |
| 2008 | Frühere Verhältnisse | Johann Nestroy | |
| 2008 | Ein Sommernachtstraum | William Shakespeare | Revival |
| 2009 | Der Geizige | Molière | |
| 2009 | Kabale und Liebe | Friedrich Schiller | |
| 2010 | Das Eselsspiel | Plautus | |
| 2010 | Macbeth | William Shakespeare | |
| 2011 | Der Heiratsantrag and Der Bär | Anton Chekhov | |
| 2011 | Das Käthchen von Heilbronn | Heinrich von Kleist | |
| 2012 | Lumpazivagabundus | Johann Nestroy | |
| 2012 | Maria Magdalena | Friedrich Hebbel | |
| 2013 | Der eingebildete Kranke | Molière | |
| 2013 | Der Rubin | Friedrich Hebbel | |
| 2014 | Romeo und Julia | William Shakespeare | |
| 2014 | Der Floh im Ohr | Georges Feydeau | |
| 2015 | Der zerbrochne Krug | Heinrich von Kleist | Revival; last season in Kronach |
| 2015 | Der Florentinerhut | Eugène Labiche | |
| 2016 | Faust I | Johann Wolfgang von Goethe | First season in Pegnitz (grammar-school gymnasium) |
| 2017 | Die Schule der Frauen oder Schlau, schlau, die Frau! | Molière | First season on the Schlossberg, Pegnitz |
| 2018 | Scherz, Satire, Ironie und tiefere Bedeutung | Christian Dietrich Grabbe | Revival |
| 2018 | Hamlet | William Shakespeare | Revival |
| 2019 | Der zerbrochne Krug | Heinrich von Kleist | Revival |
| 2019 | Leonce und Lena oder Zwei Königskinder auf der Flucht | Georg Büchner | |
| 2022 | Der Pottensteiner Teufelspakt | Daniel Leistner | After a Pottenstein legend; first season in Pottenstein |
| 2022 | Frühere Verhältnisse | Johann Nestroy | Revival |
| 2023 | Der Rehbock | August von Kotzebue | |
| 2024 | Ernst sein ist alles | Oscar Wilde | |
| 2024 | Leonce und Lena | Georg Büchner | Revival |
| 2025 | Der Bahnhof bleibt im Dorf | Daniel Leistner | |
| 2025 | Im weißen Rössl | Oscar Blumenthal and Gustav Kadelburg |
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Die Faust-Festspiele in Pottenstein, Faust-Festspiele, retrieved 17 October 2026. Archived on 12 July 2026.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Kleine Chronik der Faust-Festspiele, Faust-Festspiele, retrieved 17 October 2026. Archived on 12 July 2026.
- ↑ Faust Festspiele – Freilichttheater in Pottenstein, Faust-Festspiele, retrieved 17 October 2026. Archived on 12 July 2026.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Die Stücke der Festspiele 1995 bis 2025, Faust-Festspiele, retrieved 17 October 2026. Archived on 12 July 2026.