Editorial 4/2017

Changes
Changes – thinking of the weather this summer, the word has an undeniably negative overtone. But changes can also be positive, signalling motion and progress. Nevertheless, there is a huge desire for stability, not only where the weather is concerned. When change happens as fast and furiously as today, we hang on tighter to what we know. Take the friends of Berlin’s Volksbühne theatre, for instance, who would have liked to keep artistic director Frank Castorf at the theatre indefinitely. But change is coming to the Volksbühne, too, as we report in this issue.

The work of rosalie, who passed away this June, was constantly changing and evolving. A stage-art innovator whose stage design evolved into light installations, rosalie raised the importance of light and space. Some new ideas in the field were impressively demonstrated at this summer’s festivals, such as Sommerszene Salzburg and the Thunersee festival.
The reports in this issue’s Fokus also testify to many changes. Several of them concern current renovation projects, some of them problematic. New buildings are planned in Rostock, Nuremberg, Stuttgart, Augsburg, Frankfurt am Main and Bonn. Lessons seem to have been ...