What a wonderful feeling: I’m finally sitting again in my office at the State Theatre, switching on the professional computer, and through the open window not only the fresh spring air blows in, but I also hear the quiet murmur of voices from the stage technicians who are enjoying their break outside by the loading ramp—of course with some baby elephants as “distance keepers” and a selection of stylish face masks.

For a long time, we only communicated electronically, met in chats, on the homepage, and on the phone. Anyone who meets again in person after such a long time feels immense joy—there’s so much to talk about. It seems as if a kind of collective speech backlog needs to be released…

Every day, a few more people return to the theater, and concerts in senior homes delight both audiences and performers—finally something resembling a performance again!

I’m glad that working from home with phones and personal tablets is becoming less frequent, even though meetings are still held as video conferences and this virtual state will have to be endured for some time. Signs on office doors show how many people are allowed inside at the same time, plexiglass walls separate opposite desks, and some dressing rooms have been converted into additional offices. The workshops in Aigen are staffed again; a small team works in the costume department at the Landestheater, but the seamstresses continue sewing from home. Preparations are underway for the ballet evening “Tanto… Tango” and the large production “Der Schuh des Manitu.” Costume designer Conny Lüders creates lavish costumes—“lots of glitter, lots of pink, lots of fringes,” laughs Veronika Steiner, who supplies the seamstresses with pre-cut fabrics. At home, the makeup artists continue working on the wigs for the “Manitu” Indians.

Since Monday, May 18, 2020, the ladies and gentlemen from sales have also returned to the ticket office rooms on Theatergasse. The fresh-off-the-press season brochure invites browsing with pure anticipation.

Finally, the daily rehearsal schedule for the next day is back. Naturally, it’s not as extensive as during full rehearsal and performance times, but at least small groups are already training ballet again, technical rehearsals for upcoming productions are underway on stage, and scene rehearsals for three planned productions have begun. To quickly populate the park of Schloss Leopoldskron with Shakespearean fairies, Carl Philip von Maldeghem is starting the open-air format “Shakespeare im Park,” which is dear to all of us—and this year it will focus entirely on drama. We long for working together again in the theater; performing outdoors seems to be a particularly obvious theatrical form right now.

For young audiences, the theater crime story “Happs und weg” is in preparation, and Sophie Mefan is working on a musical solo evening titled “All you need is…”

But the rehearsal process is only the first part of theater work. Like all cultural workers, we are eager for decisions from the government; we hope soon for the possibility of direct encounters between theater makers and audiences. With or without baby elephants.

In March, I wrote that none of us really want to leave the theater because it is our artistic home and, in this crisis, a personal anchor. And that we experience the unprecedented together.

Now we want to return to our theater just as together. “My home is my theatre”—I like this home office.

Friederike Bernau, May 20, 2020