Starting this fall, the German State Theater Timișoara (GSTT) has increased its artistic team with three new members. Thus, as of September 1, 2024, director Clemens Bechtel, a long-standing collaborator of our theater, has become the new artistic director of the GSTT, director Irisz Kovacs, previously nominated for two UNITER awards, has taken over the position of the theater's hired director, and actor Radu Vulpe, well known for his roles in the repertoire of the German Theater, has returned to the artistic team.

Clemens Bechtel has been working as a director since 1995 and is best known for his research-based work. He has staged productions in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Hungary, Romania, as well as in Burundi, Mali and Malawi. His show Staats-Sicherheiten/State Security at the Hans-Otto-Theater in Potsdam, in which former prisoners talk about the Stasi prisons, was awarded the Friedrich Luft Prize in 2009. Hunger for Trade (2015) at the Schauspielhaus Hamburg was also an important project for him. In this project, theaters from four continents came together to realize eight plays about global food markets. In recent years, Bechtel has staged many performances in East Africa and Eastern Europe, as well as in Wiesbaden, Mannheim and Freiburg. At the German State Theater he directed The Age of the Fish after Ödön von Horváth (2013) and Sidy Thal, a collaboration with the Jewish State Theater in Bucharest, based on a text he co-wrote with Thomas Perle (2023).

Irisz Kovacs is a theater director and photographer. She was the winner of the festival-competition D-butan-T 2021 and director of the Fresh Start residency at Reactor of Creation and Experiment, where the show Un copil pe un litru de benzină was born, performed in the framework of the Festival "Șerban Ionescu", Fest FDR, Undercloud. She was nominated for the UNITER award for debut for the show 8 fathers at the Constanta State Theatre, selected in the National Theatre Festival. In 2023 she received a new UNITER nomination for directing TSCHICK. Why We Took the Car, a stage adaptation by Robert Koall of the novel by Wolfgang Herrndorf, a GSTT production. He was also awarded the "Iulian Vișa" Prize at the Sibiu International Theater Festival (FITS) in 2024, which is given to young theater creators.

Radu Vulpe graduated in 2006 from the German Acting Department at the Faculty of Music of the West University of Timisoara. In 2004 he joined the German State Theater in Timișoara, where he acted in productions such as Cabaret by Joe Masteroff, Michael Frayn's Noises off, Frank Wedekind's Spring Awakening, Volker Schmidt's Actually, it's beautiful, Thomas Jonigk's Perpetrators, Eugène Ionesco's The Bald Soprano, etc. Among the directors he has worked with are Răzvan Mazilu, Wolf E. Rahlfs, Charles Muller, Volker Schmidt, Szabó K. István, Radu-Alexandru Nica, Alexandru Dabija. Since 2017 he has been involved in a lot of international theater projects at Neue Bühne Villach, Theater Kosmos, Stadttheater Klagenfurt or a.c.m.e,- kollektiv, collaborating with leading directors of the German theater space: Mercedes Echerer, Ulrich Wiggers, Martin Dueller, Elke-Schwab Lohr, Dora Schneider or Heinrich Baumgartner. Since 2024 he has been a member of the TGST artistic collective.

On his arrival at the German Theater, Clemens Bechtel said, "Since I first worked at the German Theater in Timisoara, about 30 years ago, I have directed in different countries such as Malawi, Burundi, Hungary, Denmark, Switzerland, Austria and Germany, but also in Sibiu, Bucharest and Piatra Neamț. I have created all kinds of performances (opera, comedy, classical plays and in recent years especially research-based theater). But now it is an honor for me to be part of the GSTT team. What still interests me, after so many years, are new forms of theater - not only on stage, but also in the creative process. On the other hand, keeping traditions alive, entertaining intelligently and reflecting this complex world on stage with a smile on my face are essential for me."

Irisz Kovacs told us the following about her work: "I am very proud and excited to join the GSTT team, which I got to know, love and admire two years ago when I first worked here. Since then, I've been involved in multimedia and multidisciplinary projects, worked with teen teams, and staged shows on many other stages - all in an attempt to find out what theater means today and who we're making it for. I think that part of our mission at GSTT is to keep looking for answers through diverse working processes, with mixed teams and for different audiences, while also raising the question: what could theater be?"


The 2024/2025 season promises to be full of surprises for theater-loving audiences!