In a collaboration with Chemnitz Theatre, two students from TU Berlin, Stella Brauer and Tabea Jorcke, created the set and costumes for ‘Zwischen den Dingen sind wir sicher’. In this interview, they talk about their experiences from the conception to the premiere and give an insight into the biggest challenges.

Franziska Ritter in an interview with Stella Brauer and Tabea Jorcke

The Master’s degree programme in Stage Design_Scenic Space at the Technical University of Berlin is known for its practical teaching: students are repeatedly prepared for the complex practice as scenographers, stage and costume designers during the two-year degree programme as part of ideas competitions and realisation projects together with external cooperation partners. For example, there has been a cooperation with Chemnitz Theatre since 2015, in which the stage and costume design for the opening of the drama studio’s season is realised by selected students from TU Berlin every year. In this way, productions such as ‘Das Maß der Dinge’ (2020), ‘Alice in Wonderland’ (2022) and ‘Prinzessinnendramen’ (2023) have premiered in recent years under the direction of lecturers Frank Hänig and Norman Heinrich. 

This year, the post-apocalyptic drama ‘Zwischen den Dingen sind wir sicher’ by young playwright Laura Naumann was on the programme at Chemnitz’s Spinnbau/Ostflügel (director: Ulrike Euen, premiere 2 October 2024). The play tells the story of the three siblings Bandito, Techno and Sascha, who live in a dystopian time after the loss of their parents in a self-built protective wall. They struggle to survive in a hostile world while facing conflicts within their family and the threat of ‘uniformed people’, including the character Rascasse. The play focuses on sibling relationships, hope and the challenges of survival in a destroyed society.

From May to July 2024, six second-semester students developed various designs for stage sets and costumes in an internal project seminar led by lecturer Norman Heinrich and in close collaboration with the head of the Chemnitz Drama Studio Ulrike Euen. At the end of the semester, a jury consisting of the course coordinator Prof. Kerstin Laube, the lecturer and representatives of the theatre discussed the diverse ideas. The stage design by student Stella Brauer and the costume design by student Tabea Jorcke were selected for the subsequent practical phase and realisation.

Franziska Ritter: Stella and Tabea, could you please start by briefly introducing yourselves?

Stella Brauer (SB): Very much so. I’m originally from Vienna, but I moved to Maastricht for my Bachelor’s degree in Arts and Cultural Studies. Before and alongside this, I was able to gain experience in acting and stage design through freelance theatre and short film projects. In Vienna and Paris, I also worked in a museum, a gallery, a centre for transdisciplinary art and most recently at the Cultural Forum in Paris before starting this Master’s degree.

Tabea Jorcke (TJ): I grew up in Berlin, where I also completed my bachelor’s degree in theatre studies and art history. After several internships and assistantships at the Deutsches Theater Berlin, the Grips Theatre and the Uni.T of the UdK Berlin, I gained my first experience as a stage and set designer (including for the ‘Queer Joy’ Festival 2024 and the feature film ‘Kein Spiel’). At the same time, I worked consistently in the theatre and exhibition sector, currently at the KBB of the Sophiensaele.

Naumann’s drama text from 2016 is more topical than ever and very poignant. What approach did you take to this work and how did you translate the themes conceptually in your respective designs?

TJ: I think Laura Naumann’s drama text reads desperately, sadly, with a wry smile and is permeated by current worries. She captures the descriptions of interpersonal relationships and of young people who have had to grow up too quickly in a special way, so that the themes described seem frighteningly close and contemporary. During the design process, I couldn’t shake off the feeling that the emotional closeness to the characters and the events had to be emphasised threefold on stage, that the here and now, the contemporary and the familiar to us all had to be portrayed. The siblings‘ costumes should therefore not be too far removed from current fashions, while still showing the characters’ creativity in dealing with the apocalypse. Another recurring theme in the text is the poisonous rain, so rainwear was a natural choice. However, I wanted to break up the supposed protection of this by using transparent fabrics and leaving the layers underneath visible.

SB: The text talks about a home, but I quickly realised that this no longer exists, at least not in physical form, but merely as a place of longing. The central element of my design is therefore a movable wall, which is intended to mark the boundary between the protected inner world and the outside world, which is perceived as threatening. Visually, this duality is characterised by the contrast between the bright interior and the weathered, patchwork-like exterior. The wall is a fragment that has grown with the family over the years and serves as the only protective cover. An altar with family photos and a climbing frame symbolise the memory of a carefree past and also the hope for a better future. The stage design reflects the themes of isolation, illusion and hope in the midst of desolation and loneliness. As a dynamic stage element, the wall makes it possible to define different locations such as a house, a street, a garden and a river by the actors constantly moving and repositioning it.

How can I imagine the design process in the seminar? How did you proceed?

SB: The seminar started at the beginning of the semester – in addition to general research on the play – with an excursion to Chemnitz to get an impression of the theatre and the stage space on site in the Spinnbau, where the theatre currently has its interim venue (editor’s note: see BTR special volume 2022). In weekly feedback meetings with our mentor Norman Heinrich and the director Ulrike Euen, our perspectives on the text and the respective translation into a stage design and the costume ideas for the four characters were continuously sharpened.

TJ: After six weeks of work on the design, we prepared a model and all the documents for the final presentation so that they could be forwarded to the workshop immediately afterwards. For example, true-to-scale technical drawings such as the floor plan and section of the stage with the transformations entered, drawings of individual parts, a parts list with descriptions of all components, props, figurines and a costume list.

And what happened next? Can you give us an insight into the actual development process of the production? How did you find working with the stage crew on site?

SB: After submitting my design, I went straight to the construction rehearsal in Chemnitz at the beginning of June. Everything I had planned so far in the model (scale 1:25) was checked for dimensions and I got a first feel for how the mobile wall would actually function as a central stage element in the space. My main contact person on site was the production manager Christiane Kleiber, with whom I discussed the technical aspects: How do we design the interior construction of the wall? What exact dimensions do we decide on? Which parts are already available and which materials have to be purchased separately? She was the link between the trades and me, so to speak. 

As I was present throughout the entire rehearsal period from mid-August, I heard every stage direction and was able to follow how the daily handling of my stage set took place. This process was important and enriching, as my stage set with the wall was conceived as a dynamic element, as a co-player so to speak, and I could see how the four actors familiarised themselves with it. After weeks on the rehearsal stage, many visits to the furniture store, appointments in the workshop and regular meetings with the props department and the set designer, my set was installed on the final stage, the East Wing. I was overwhelmed by how precisely everything came together, how quickly final changes could still be made despite the high workload in the workshops and how supportive every department was.

TJ: My first meeting with the costume workshop staff was shortly after the rehearsal. I presented my concept to the workshop management and the costume masters and we quickly discussed individual costume parts. It was the first time for me that an artistic work was not realised by myself, but by an entire workshop. I was particularly pleased: In the costume workshop, I always had the impression that I was taken just as seriously as much more experienced costume designers.

After a tour of the stock, it quickly became clear which costume parts needed to be purchased and which we could reuse and rework. After all, workshop manager Mallika Manuwald attached great importance to producing as sustainably as possible. Looking back on other projects, the biggest enemy of sustainability for me was always the lack of time, so it was very convenient for me to have enough leeway during the six-week break in the season to search extensively for costume pieces in second-hand shops or to have pieces from the collection reworked.

After the season break at the end of August, I started working closely with the workshop and once again I was delighted to be on an equal footing with all the staff. What I will probably remember most is the constant travelling between the rehearsal stage and the workshop: This ‘running back and forth’, the last-minute requests for costumes or the needs of the actors during rehearsals, changes in play sequences and their effects on a wide variety of trades – that’s theatre work for me and I enjoyed it immensely at Chemnitz Theatre.

Gre there any challenges during the realisation that you particularly remember?

TJ: A big topic until shortly before the premiere was the helmet for the character Rascasse – the ever-patrolling, observing supposed enemy. The helmet was the first costume piece I planned for the production and it remained part of the concept until the end. For the guard Rascasse, I developed a helmet that was to be both simple and military as well as frightening and theatrical. The basis was a firefighter’s helmet to which an extension in the shape of a harpy’s beak was to be attached. The challenge here was to coordinate the individual work steps of the various trades. We used both 3D-printed and hand-sewn parts to create the helmet. I worked together with the master armourer Georg Schultheiß until the very end on the detailed implementation. Not only did the shape of the beak and its attachment play a major role, but also the permitted weight and the downright indestructibility of a firefighter’s helmet (who would have thought it).

SB: For me, it was above all the space that posed a challenge. The stage is located in an old spinning machine factory and is not a conventional theatre stage: two columns measuring 1 m x 0.75 m are located in the middle of the stage and had to be incorporated into the design. The low ceiling with a usable height of just 2.9 m, which is atypical for theatre spaces, also had to be taken into account and was limiting at first glance.

Nevertheless, these circumstances became an exciting task and led me to find a creative answer. During the workshop handover in particular, I realised how precisely the workshops had to be communicated with and how quickly clear decisions had to be made – based purely on imagination. I also learnt a lot during the lighting rehearsals with the technical team: how to create moods, how to illuminate correctly as required, how to design transitions.

Last but not least: How was the premiere for you?

SB: The premiere was exciting for me because, after weeks of rehearsals without an audience, we were suddenly able to show what we had been working so hard on. It was almost absurd to see the auditorium full and especially interesting to hear what the audience could take away from it. Everything was overwhelming, there was a sense of relief and joy to see and celebrate the result and also a bit of sentimentality that it’s over for us now.

TJ: You’ve spoken from my soul: It was impressive and emotional. I was – and still am – incredibly proud of our work and the whole team that evening.

SB and TJ: We would like to thank the theatre and the university for their cooperation and trust in us students. How wonderful that we were able to share our experiences here and that we will be able to gain many more in the theatres of this world after we graduate next summer at the latest.

Franziska Ritter is a scenographer, researches theatre architecture and in/material cultural heritage, also teaches at various universities and is a research assistant in the Stage Design_Scenic Space course at the TU Berlin. She is currently working on her doctorate on the TU Berlin’s theatre building collection in the DFG project ‘Theatre Building Knowledge’.

„Zwischen den Dingen sind wir sicher“ 

Regie: Ulrike Euen
Stage: Stella Brauer 
Costumes: Tabea Jorcke 
Mentor: Norman Heinrich
Dramaturgy: Agnieszka Jabłonska

Actors:
Sascha: Kevin Bianco **
Techno: Luis Huayna ***
Bandito: Dana Koganova **
Rascasse: Hubert Chojniak **

** Students „Anton Bruckner“ Privatuniversität Linz
*** Student Filmuniversität „Konrad Wolf“ Babelsberg