ABOUT US
RAMPE
RAMPE is a production house for theatre, performance, dance, and music. Contemporary and experimental theatrical formats, aesthetics and working methods are created here. Performances in urban spaces, wide-ranging collaborations and participatory neighborhood projects promote exchange with various social actors. RAMPE in Stuttgart provides a stage for the diversity of contemporary theatre positions. As part of co-productions, guest performances and residencies, national and international artists present themselves at RAMPE and create artistic connections that give important impulses to the Stuttgart theater scene. Collaborations with initiatives and institutions in the city and the region are an integral part of the program. RAMPE is a venue, meeting place and long-term cooperation partner for many local groups and collectives. The theater is housed in the depot of what is known familiarly as the “Zacke”, a cogwheel train that pulls into the foyer every evening to park overnight.
In 2019, RAMPE was awarded the German Federal Theatrer Prize.
RAMPE also organizes 6 TAGE FREI (“6 days free”), a festival of independent performing arts sponsored by the city of Stuttgart and the state of Baden-Württemberg, which takes place every two years. RAMPE is a non-profit organization and receives institutional support from by the city of Stuttgart and the state of Baden-Württemberg.
Following a change in the artistic directorship, RAMPE is currently undergoing the process of formulating a mission statement, which we will inform you of here as soon as possible.
History
Regula Gerber and Alexander Seer founded the Rampe in 1984 as an independent theater in the city of Stuttgart….
In the six years that followed, they assembled an ensemble of twenty members, whose performances had a decisive influence on Rampe’s position amid the national and regional theater landscape. The repertoire included both classics and new German dramas.
In 1988 the Rampe had to vacate its first theater because the owner of the building required it. With the help of the City of Stuttgart’s Cultural Office and the Baden-Württemberg Ministry of Science and Art, a new home building was found—the old rack railway depot on Filderstraße. It was converted at the initiative of Dr. Roland Batzill, spokesman of the board of the Stuttgart Straßenbahnen AG, and the former mayor Manfred Rommel.
“Every day, one of Stuttgart’s most famous sights, the Stuttgart Zacke, pulls in and out. This theater is also a garage. This is where the Stuttgart rack railroad sleeps. Every evening it is parked in the hall, which is glassed in and open at the back, a giant foyer with rails, so to speak […]. The theater is actually organically connected to the city by this artery. The Zacke is a means of public transportation connecting the long-proletarian south of Stuttgart with the bourgeois Degerlocher Höhe.”
Nicole Golombek, “If the mountain does not come to the prophet, the prophet must go to the mountain. The spaces of the Theater Rampe,” in: Thomas Rothschild (ed.), In the Shadow of Time: The Theater Rampe in Stuttgart 1998-2013 (Berlin: Theater der Zeit 2013).
Housed in a rack railroad depot since 1992, Theater Rampe in Stuttgart has established itself as an artistically advanced production and co-production house that promotes contemporary aesthetics. From 1998 to 2013 the artistic director Eva Hosemann (who co-directed with Stephan Bruckmeier until 2004) focused the theater on contemporary drama as an auteur theater and thus provided important impulses for the collaboration of authors and theater practice.
Marie Bues and Martina Grohmann took over the management of Theater Rampe in 2013. In addition to the auteur theater, they developed the theater as a production venue for the independent scene. In October 2021 Franziska Stulle joined Martin Grohmann in managing the theatre. Marie Bues continued her collaboration with the theater as director and curator.
The current change of management took place as part of a process of opening up to the public and meeting accessibility requirements. Ilona Schaal, Bastian Sistig and Lisa Tuyala have taken over the management of the theater for the 2023/24 season and will continue to develop it into an independent production house with international appeal.
Structure and sponsors
RAMPE is a non-profit organisation and is institutionally supported by the city of Stuttgart and the state of Baden-Württemberg.
The Peterstaler company supplies RAMPE with mineral water for the artists.