Christopher Rüping "CRAVE" by Sarah Kane

Christopher Rüping is one of the most influential directors in German-speaking theater. His productions, which are as tender as they are exuberant, are created in close collaboration with a core team of long-standing colleagues, both on and off stage. Born in Hanover in 1985, Rüping began directing as a freelance director for theaters across the German-speaking world after studying directing at the Hamburg Theatre Academy and the Zurich University of the Arts, working for venues such as the Thalia Theater in Hamburg, the Deutsches Theater Berlin and the Staatstheater Stuttgart.

From 2016 to 2019, Rüping was resident director at the Münchner Kammerspiele under the artistic direction of Matthias Lilienthal. During this period, he created highly acclaimed and widely toured productions such as "Drums in the Night" by Bertolt Brecht, "Hamlet" by William Shakespeare, and the ten-hour ancient spectacle "Dionysos Stadt".

From 2019 to 2024, Rüping was part of the management team at the Schauspielhaus Zürich as resident director. There, with Jean-Luc Lagarce’s "Simply the End of the World", he launched his family trilogy, which continued with Mieko Kawakami’s "Breasts and Eggs" at the Thalia Theatre in Hamburg and concluded with Max Porter’s "Grief Is the Thing with Feathers" at the Schauspielhaus Bochum. Furthermore, his production of "Gier" in Zurich marked a long-awaited return to the work of the playwright Sarah Kane, whose texts had originally inspired Rüping’s passion for theater.

Rüping’s productions have received numerous awards, have been invited to the Berliner Theatertreffen five times, and have been staged at internationally renowned festivals, including in Tehran, Prague, Taipei, St Petersburg and Beijing. Christopher Rüping has a long-standing relationship with the Deutsches Theater Berlin: in 2013, he directed his first production there in the ‘Box’, followed by four further productions in the Kammerspiele and on the main stage. The transfer of his Zurich productions of "Einfach das Ende der Welt" ("Simply the End of the World") and "Gier" marks the beginning of a new chapter in the director’s history with the theater and its audience.

Christopher Rüping will open the 2026/27 season with his production of "Deutscher Herbst" – a co-production with the Ruhrtriennale.

Sarah Kane was born in 1971 and died in 1999. She wrote five plays and one screenplay. Despite initial critical hostility and outrage, her plays are now regarded as modern classics and have had hundreds of productions around the world.
Her first play, BLASTED, was produced at the Royal Court Theatre in 1995. Its innovative dramatic structure and uncompromising treatment of rape and the atrocities of war were too much for the critics and drew howls of derision from broadsheet and tabloid alike. Not since Howard Brenton's ROMANS IN BRITAIN had there been such a theatrical scandal, but not all reaction was negative, with support and admiration for the play coming from (among others) Edward Bond, Harold Pinter and Caryl Churchill.
Sarah Kane's second play, PHAEDRA'S LOVE (produced at the Gate Theatre, London, in May 1996) and her third, CLEANSED (which opened in the Royal Court Theatre's temporary home, the Duke of York's, in May 1998) received similarly unappreciative reviews in the UK, but elsewhere, especially in Europe, the plays' structural innovations, non-naturalism and dark humour were highly acclaimed.
Her screenplay, SKIN (produced by Channel Four/British Screen, directed by Vincent O'Connell) was first televised in June 1997. Like her plays, it was not without controversy: originally scheduled to be shown in the early evening, it was moved back at the last minute to 11:35pm due to television executives' concerns about its explicit depictions of racism and violence.
CRAVE, her fourth play, a Paines Plough and Bright Limited production, previewed at the Chelsea Centre Theatre, London, in August 1998, before touring to the Traverse Theatre (as part of the Edinburgh Festival), the Royal Court Theatre in London, then Berlin, Dublin and Copenhagen. The tide was beginning to turn: CRAVE's poetry and experimental form received rave reviews at home and abroad.
Sarah Kane's final play, 4.48 PSYCHOSIS, premiered at the Royal Court Theatre in June 2000. Its unique form and the honesty and success with which it communicates the experience of suicidal despair have made it one of her most praised and performed works.
All plays are published by Methuen Drama.

Deutsches Theater is one of the largest theatres in the German-speaking world. Situated in the centre of Berlin, it was built in 1848 as a commercial theatre, but only one generation later, under a new management and the name “Deutsches Theater” (German Theatre), it had developed to become one of the most significant and influential theatres in the world – a status which it still holds today. For more than 150 years, numerous actors, directors, playwrights… as well as technical innovations (like the invention of a revolving stage, the use of electricity, light design, up until video design and digital technologies) pushed the artistic means of the theatre medium further.

Today, with an ensemble of 38 actors, around 300 permanent employees, a repertoire of roughly 60 shows on re-runs as well as 20 new productions each season, Deutsches Theater is a powerful producing theatre.

The theatre has three stages (the large stage with approx. 650 seats, the Kammer with approx. 230 seats and the Box, a variable venue with a maximum of 80 seats) and some off-spaces like rehearsal stages, beautiful foyers for smaller events etc. In the season 2023/2024, Deutsches Theater welcomed close to 160.000 spectators in around 800 events throughout the year.

Since summer 2023, Iris Laufenberg has taken over the artistic direction of Deutsches Theater Berlin with her team. Her artistic project centres around opening up Deutsches Theater to new audiences, new artists, new texts and playwrights, while highlighting the DNA of this house: a sociopolitical approach to theatre, a profound interest in topics for a contemporary, international, metropolitan audience as well as a strong focus on its first-class ensemble of actors.

Deutsches Theater has long had a strong focus on contemporary drama and authors, with the staging of new theatre texts every season, the ‘Autor:innentheatertage’ (ATT), its annual playwrights’ festival for contemporary German drama, which will have its 30th edition in 2025, and the “ATT Ateliers”, offering three playwrights in-house writing residencies each season.

In addition, ‘DT Kontext’, with a free supporting programme of expert talks and discussions with our audiences for all productions, as well as ‘DT Jung*’, the youth and participatory department of the theatre, anchor Deutsches Theater as an important democratic public space in Berlin.

Deutsches Theater sees itself as a space to collectively encounter the present and explore its complexities.

Working with German and international stage directors such as Anita Vulesica, Sam Max, Claudia Bossard, Christopher Rüping, Anica Tomić, Alexander Eisenach, András Dömötör or Pınar Karabulut, the wide range of aesthetics and narrative styles presented at Deutsches Theater over a season, the multiple layers of discourse, the uniquely sensory experience of a theatre visit all offer a multiplicity of access points to our shared reality.