Guests

Mila van Daag

Costume designer

Mila van Daag studied product design, architecture and theatre at the Bauhaus-University Weimar and at the Akademie Minerva in Groningen. Since 2006 she has developed project related sets for film and theatre.

After three years as props assistant at the Stadttheater Giessen, where she was responsible for numerous sets, she joined Theater Erfurt in the 2012/2013 season as props assistant and designed the set for “King Thrushbeard”, “The Coronation of Poppaea” and “Master Class”. Mila van Daag worked as set designer for “The Ring of the Nibelung (in one evening)” a co-operative project between Theater Erfurt and Theater Waidspeicher.

At Theater Waidspeicher she created the costumes for “The Glass Menagerie”, “Love of Seven Dolls”, “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn”, “The Day Grandma broke the Internet”, ”Animalists”, “Animal Letters” and for the co-production with Theater Erfurt “The Return of Ulysses to his Homeland”. She also worked as a stage and costume designer for “The Nutcracker and the Mouse King”, “Novecento – The Legend of the Ocean Pianist”, “Iphigenia, the King’s Child”, and “What the Rhinoceros Saw When It Looked over the Fence”.

In the 2026/2027 season, she is designing the stage and costumes together for “Pictures of Your True Love”.

Naemi Friedmann

Director

Naemi Friedmann, born and raised in Thuringia, studied acting at the Berlin University of the Arts from 2010 to 2014. She worked as a freelance actress in and with various formats and was a guest performer at the Deutsches Theater Berlin, the Maxim Gorki Theater and Ballhaus Naunystraße, among others. She expanded her research into performance styles and theatre formats by studying directing at the "Ernst Busch" University of Theatre Arts Berlin. Her first directing work was at the Theater am Markt in Eisenach and at the Berliner Arbeiter- und Studententheater (bat) in Berlin. This was followed by productions at the Oslo Nye Teater, the Musiktheater im Revier in Gelsenkirchen, the Neues Theater Halle and the Schauspielhaus Hamburg.

Her work “Die Zofen” (The Maids) has been invited to numerous guest performances in Germany and abroad and has been shown at the Deutsches Theater Berlin, the Deutsches Theater Göttingen and at the Metaformy Festival in Wroclaw, among others. The Maids was nominated for the Körber Studio Junge Regie 2023 at the Thalia Theater Hamburg.

In the 2025/2026 season, she directed “Panicman” by Hartmut El Kurdi at Theater Waidspeicher.

Photo by: Mirjana Vrbaski

Katharina Lattke

Composer / musician

Born in Pirna in 1987 as the youngest daughter of a very musical family, Katharina Lattke started taking violin lessons at the age of 6 and switched to drums at 15. After graduating from high school, she studied jazz/rock/pop percussion at the Hochschule für Musik Carl Maria von Weber Dresden and folk/improvised music at the Norges Musikkhøgskole Oslo from 2008 to 2014.

In addition to her work with her band “monkey & goat”, she is active as a freelance drummer in various bands and projects and in recent years has had engagements at the theatre junge generation tjg. Dresden and the Semper-Oper, among others. Outside of her work as a percussionist, she also composes, arranges and produces music for theatre and other projects, including for the Theater Junge Welt Leipzig.

As a freelance instrumental teacher, she teaches children and adults on the drumset and especially tries to make the path to this instrument palatable to girls and women!

In the 2022/2023 season, she took on the composition and sound for the production “Mole's Star”.

Lili Laube

Puppet designer

At Theater Waidspeicher, she is designing the puppets for the production “Pictures of Your True Love”.

Yulia Martynova

Musician

Yulia Martynova is a pianist. She completed her course at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music in Weimar, graduating with a diploma in 2003. Her professional experience includes many years of teaching and artistic work at the Waldorf School in Weimar and the Johann Nepomuk Hummel Academy of Music in Weimar as well as numerous artistic projects and performances in Thuringia and throughout Germany. Since 2000 she has worked as musical director at the cabaret theatre “Die Arche”.

She worked as a pianist at Theater Waidspeicher as part of the production “Pretty Lola, Pleasant Liesel”.

Kerstin Schmidt

Stage, puppet and costume designer

Kerstin Schmidt was born in Halle/Saale in 1960. From 1978 to 1980 she did a training as a men's tailor, followed, by a training and qualification as fashion designer from 1980 to 1983. From 1983 to 1989 she did evening classes at the School of Art Berlin/Weißensee. Since 1990 she has been working as a freelance set designer for theatre, opera and puppet theatre productions. Since 2010 she has run “Engel-Schmidt Produktion” with Frank A. Engel.

For Theater Waidspeicher, Kerstin Schmidt designed the set and puppets for “Grand Hotel”, “The Seven Ravens”, “Amadeus”, “Heart of Stone”, “King Lear”, “The Wooden Horse”, “Mirror, Mirror on the Wall”, “The Master and Margarita”, “Pinocchio” and “Miss Smilla’s Feeling for Snow” and “Gold Power Love Death – The Song of the Nibelungs”.

Merle Smalla

Puppet designer

Merle Smalla, born in 1997, studied Experimental Design at Hanover University of Applied Science and Arts. Through internships at puppet theatres, including with Mechthild Nienaber, she became fascinated by the medium of puppets and began to devote more and more of her artistic work to puppets. Collaborations with Frank Soehnle and the Theater der Nacht Northeim gave her added experience in puppet making and acting. Merle Smalla has been a freelance artist since 2021 and lives in Bremen. She works in a varied field of artistic activities, such as mask and figure making, costume design and illustration, where her dark and playful style runs like a common thread. At the same time, she also works as a puppeteer and performer, becoming a character herself from time to time.

For the 2025/2026 season, she designed puppets for the production of “What the Rhinoceros Saw When It Looked over the Fence” at Theater Waidspeicher.

Photo by: Timo Knorr

Julia Sontag

Director

Julia Sontag was born and grew up in the Rhineland. At the age of 16, she passed the entrance exam to Bayerische Theaterakademie “August Everding” Munich and studied acting there, graduating in 2009. Various engagements at theatres and in TV productions have taken her across the country as a player. With the 2016/2017 season, she moved to Theater der jungen Welt (TdjW) in Leipzig as a permanent actress. Since the 2018/2019 season, Julia Sontag has also been working as a director, preferably for younger audiences. At the TdjW Leipzig she staged “Die Seiltänzerin” by Mike Kenny, “Man wird doch wohl mal wütend werden dürfen” in her own version of the children's book by M. Boutavant and T. Tellegen and “Der Zinnsoldat und die Papiertänzerin” by Roland Schimmelpfenning. In autumn 2020, she moved the well-known children's book story by Leo Lionni into the digital-interactive space with “Digital: Frederick” and was responsible for the set as well as the direction. In an extended play variant, “Frederick und Alexander” has also been performed in analogue since summer 2021.

Since 2023, Julia Sontag works as a freelance actor and director at Theater der jungen Generation Dresden.

“Mole's Star” in the 2022/2023 season was Julia Sontag's first work at Theater Waidspeicher Erfurt.

Kristine Stahl

Puppeteer and actress, director

Kristine Stahl was born in Schwerin in 1967. From 1986 to 1990, she studied Puppetry at the Ernst Busch University of Theatre Arts Berlin). She performed in Erfurt, Halle and Naumburg. As well as her employment as a puppeteer and actress she has also worked as a director and set and puppet designer for various German puppet theatres including Karlsruhe, Magdeburg, Naumburg, Chemnitz, Bautzen, Erfurt and Leipzig. Kristine Stahl was engaged at Theater Waidspeicher as puppeteer and actress from 2009 to 2017. As a director, she put on stage “Leon, the Pirate”, “The Oracle or The Bear, the Peacock and the Secret of the Old Hare”, “Pretty Lola, Pleasant Liesel” and “Wolf’s Eyelashes”. In the season 2020/2021 she was the director and set designer for “The Moon takes his Socks off at Night”.

In the 2026/2027 season, she will be directing ”The Snow Queen”.

Photo by: Alice End

Mo-Elia Stock

Puppeteer and actor

Mortimer Elia Stock was born in Dresden in 2000 and studied contemporary puppetry at the Ernst Busch Academy of Dramatic Arts in Berlin. Before beginning their studies, they completed a voluntary cultural year at the tjg. theater junge generation in Dresden. From 2023 to 2026, they were a permanent ensemble member at Theater Waidspeicher.

In the 2026/2027 season, they can be seen as actor and puppeteer in “Gold Power Love Death – The Song of the Nibelungs” at Theater Waidspeicher.

Ira Storch-Hausmann

Costume designer

Ira Storch-Hausmann was born in Berlin. From 1991 to 1993, she trained at the Ernst Busch Academy of Dramatic Arts in the puppetry department as a puppet designer and set designer. From 1993 to 1995, she worked as a stage and costume assistant at Theatre 89 in Berlin. She then studied stage and costume design at the Kunsthochschule Berlin-Weissensee from 1995 to 2001 and has since collaborated with various directors at various fringe theatres in Berlin, theatres for children and young people, puppet theatres and theatres in Germany.

For the 2025/2026 season, she designed the costumes for the production of “The Dragon” at the Theater Waidspeicher.

Betty Wirtz

Set, costume and puppet designer

Betty Wirtz completed an apprenticeship as a set designer in the Design Department of Theater Bonn, where she then continued to be employed and at the same time trained as a theatre teacher at the Off-Theater Neuss. She then studied puppetry at the Ernst Busch Academy of Dramatic Arts in Berlin and, after graduating as a performing artist, received long-term contracts as a puppeteer at the Naumburg Theatre, Puppentheater Zwickau, and Theater der Jungen Welt in Leipzig. Since then, Betty Wirtz has worked as a freelance director, set designer and puppet maker for the Staatstheater Meiningen, Theater der Altmark, Stendal, Deutsch-Sorbisches Volkstheater Bautzen, and Theater Koblenz among others.

In the 2022/2023 season, she managed the set design and puppet making for the production “The Mole and the Stars” at the Waidspeicher Theatre.

Sarah Wolters

Set designer / stage and costumes

Sarah Wolters was born in Stuttgart in 1996 and studied stage and costume design at the Kunsthochschule Berlin-Weißensee after several assistantships.
She has been a stage and costume designer for theatre and film since 2015.

Her artistic work has taken her to the Zimmertheater Tübingen, the Volkstheater Rostock, the Semperoper Dresden, the Musiktheater im Revier, the Mainfranken Theater Würzburg, the Bayreuth Festival, the neue theater Halle and the independent scene, among others.

In the season 2024/2025 she created the designs for “Panicman” at Theater Waidspeicher. Sarah Wolters lives and works in Berlin.

Photo by: Felizia Kampa

Nadine Wottke

Set Designer / Puppet and Stage Creation

Nadine Wottke was born in Arnstadt in 1978. From 1998 to 1999 she studied media design at the Bauhaus University Weimar and then transferred to studying fine art at the Faculty of Design at the Bauhaus University Weimar, which she finished with a diploma in 2007.

She has lived in Erfurt as a freelance artist since 2007. From 2007 to 2019, she was a lecturer at the Erfurt School of Painting, and also took on teaching assignments at the University of Erfurt and the Bauhaus University Weimar. For her work, which has been exhibited in Erfurt, Berlin, Münster, Basel, Zurich, Barcelona, New York and Miami, among other places, she has received various prizes and scholarships, including the scholarship of the Cultural Foundation of the Free State of Thuringia in both 2008 and 2017 as well as the Pulse Award Miami in 2012.

Since 2018, Nadine Wottke has been employed as a staff member in the studio of Theater Waidspeicher. The overall set design for the production “Four Tales of Heaven and Earth” in the 2020/2021 season at Theater Waidspeicher was her first independent theatre work. She took on the overall design for the productions of “Tom Thumb”, “The Steadfast Tin Soldier”, “The Hare and the Hedgehog” and ”Puss in Boots” She also created the objects and props for “Pretty Lola, Pleasant Liesel” as well as puppets and objects for “The Dragon.“

In the season 2026/2027 she creates the designs for “The Snow Queen.“

Photo by: Marcel Krummrich

Frank Alexander Engel

Director, stage and puppet designer

Frank Alexander Engel was born in Pasewalk (Germany) in 1965. In 1990 he entered the "Ernst Busch" University of Theatre Arts Berlin, faculty of Puppetry and graduated as a puppeteer in 1994. After this he worked at the State Opera Berlin and the Thuringian State Theatre Meiningen and as director, set designer and performer at the Young Generation Theatre Dresden.

Since 1998 he has worked as a freelance director and set designer for puppet theatre and opera. From 2003 to 2011 he was employed by the Puppet Theatre of the City of Magdeburg as director, set designer and performer. Since 2010 he has run “Engel-Schmidt Produktion” with Kerstin Schmidt. For Theater Waidspeicher he directed und built sets and puppets for “Grand Hotel”, “The Seven Ravens”, “Amadeus”, “Heart of Stone", “King Lear“,“ The Wooden Horse”, “Mirror, Mirror on the Wall”, “The Master and Margarita”, “Pinocchio" and “Miss Smilla’s Feeling for Snow”, “Gold Power Love Death – The Song of the Nibelungs” and “The Dragon”.

Sebastian Herzfeld

Musician and composer

Born in Halle (Saale) in 1963, Sebastian Herzfeld learned several instruments at an early age and soon played in various jazz bands. Later he studied bass at the "Hanns Eisler" School of Music Berlin and graduated in 1998. Playing with musicians from the international jazz and world music scene (including Markus Stockhausen, Ramesh Shotham, Trilok Gurtu and Chris Jarrett), he developed his passion for foreign sounds and unusual rhythms.
Over the years, he turned more and more to composing music for theatre and film.

He has composed over eighty pieces of theatre music to date: as musical director of the neues theater and the Puppet Theater Halle (2005-2011) and as a guest at many theatres in Germany, including Schauspielhaus Bochum, Düsseldorf, Dresden, Bregenz, Nationaltheater Mannheim, Thalia Theater Hamburg, Schauspiel Frankfurt, Schauburg München, Berliner Ensemble and the Burgtheater Wien. His music is characterised by his preference for idiosyncratic sounds such as the tone of his custom piano and his specially developed metal instruments.

For the album “Lieder von Liebe und Tod” (Songs of Love and Death) he received the world music prize "Ruth" in 2008 together with Anne Kaftan and the singer Bobo.
He released several albums with his own settings of German poets through the project by Bobo and Herzfeld.

The composition for “Pinocchio” in the 2020/2021 season was his first collaboration with Theater Waidspeicher. In the following seasons, he arranged the composition and sound for “Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow” and “Gold Power Love Death - The Song of the Nibelungs”.

Photo by: Sami Bill

Philipp Hiemann

Musician and composer

Atif Mohammed Nor Hussein

Director, stage and puppet designer

Kinbom & Kessner

Music duo

The theatre music duo Kinbom & Kessner consists of the Berliner theatre maker Sonja Kessner and the Swedish composer and multi-instrumentalist Fredrik Kinbom. They have worked together since 2015 and have released three studio albums of original theatrical songs. Their latest album “Anthropos” was released by Hook Musik/Theater der Zeit, and contains guest contributions from amongst others Angela Winkler and Axel Werner.

Sonja Kessner is an artist and anthropologist whose work takes various forms in the field of the performing arts. Fredrik Kinbom has worked as a studio and touring musician with internationally acclaimed artists like Sarah Blasko, Gemma Ray, Gurrumul and Moulettes, and also composes for film with his duo Kinbom/Brandenburg (Grimme-Preis award 2020 for “Die Unerhörten”).

At Theater Waidspeicher, their music can be experienced in the productions “Puss in Boots” and “Cloud Pictures”.

In the 2026/2027 season, they will be responsible for composition and sound for the production “The Snow Queen”.

Photo by: Jenny Fitz

Stefan Kirmse

Choreographer and dancer

Klemens Kühn

Stage and costume designer

Philipp Pleßmann

Composer

Moritz Sostmann

Director

Moritz Sostmann was born in 1969 in Halle an der Saale, a city with a puppet theatre. He went to Berlin to study at the age of 19. After studying puppetry at the Ernst Busch Academy of Dramatic Arts in Berlin, he initially worked as a freelance actor and unexpectedly found his way back to puppetry during an engagement at the Basel Theater. In 2006, he switched sides and began working as a freelance director. Since then, he has endeavoured to explore puppetry with the means of acting and vice versa.

In his productions, both genres usually meet on an equal footing. His productions include “The Buddenbrooks”, Shakespeare's “Richard III”, and Chekhov's “Three Sisters” at puppet theatres in Halle, Magdeburg and Erfurt, “The Good Person of Sezuan”, both parts of Goethe's “Faust” and Pirandello's “Six Persons in Search of an Author” at the theatres in Cologne and Leipzig. Moritz Sostmann was in-house director at the Puppentheater Magdeburg and Schauspiel Köln for many years, as well as a guest lecturer in Berlin and Salzburg. In the 2025/2026 season, he directed “Residents“ - a collaboration between Theater Waidspeicher, schauspiel erlangen and the international figuren.theatre.festival Erlangen Nuremberg Fürth Schwabach.

In the 2026/2027 season, he directs “The Tempest”.

Matthias Thieme

Director

Matthias Thieme was born in Erfurt in 1976. He studied Theatre at the University of Leipzig and theatre-direction at the “Ernst Busch” Academy of Dramatic Arts in Berlin. He gained his first theatre experiences at youth theatre “Die Schotte” in Erfurt with which he still collaborates as guest director. Recent productions for theatre “Die Schotte” were “Hamlet” (2015), “Lysistrate” (2016) and “Tschick” (2017). His production of “Romeo and Juliet” won the German Amateur Theatre “Amarena” Prize in 2011. He has worked as director for Theater Plauen/Zwickau, neues theater halle, Figurentheater Chemnitz, Theater Stralsund/Greifswald as well as theatres in Stendal, Zittau, Esslingen, Magdeburg, Rostock, Cottbus and Leipzig. The majority of his productions are for young people.

From 2010 to 2013 he was the senior drama director and puppet theatre director at the Theater Plauen/Zwickau.

He directed and designed the stage for “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn”, “The Journey to the Centre of the Woods” and “The Day Grandma broke the Internet”. He was the director for “Krabat”, “Iphigenia, King's Child”, “The Hare and the Hedgehog” and “What the Rhinoceros Saw When It Looked Over the Fence.”

In the season 2026/27 he directs “Pictures of Your True Love.“

Hagen Tilp

Puppet designer

Hagen Tilp completed his studies in theatre design at the Dresden Academy of Fine Arts in 2003 and initially worked as a freelance puppet and prop maker in Berlin, primarily with his mentor Ingo Mewes. His work has been featured in numerous theatre and opera productions, including at Schauspiel Köln, Volksbühne Berlin, Deutsches Theater Berlin, Puppentheater Halle, Théâtre National de Bordeaux/France, and the Blickfelder Festival Zurich/Switzerland.

He has long-standing artistic partnerships with Moritz Sostmann (“Buddenbrooks”, “Faust I+II”, “Residents”), Christoph Werner (“Baltic Ballads”, “My Coldroom”), and Jarg Pataki (Wilhelm Meister, The Tempest). In addition to the stage, he has developed special effects props for international film and television productions and designed characters for the children's series “Siebenstein” for several years.

In 2013, he moved to California with his family and continued his international theatre work until his focus shifted from the stage to the exhibition space. Since 2023, he has been designing interactive exhibition elements with a special focus on inclusion and accessibility. The precise material work, the dramaturgical spatial effect, and the flair for narrative details from his theatre work form the foundation of his current work.

His puppets can be seen in the production “The Tempest” at the Theater Waidspeicher.

Martin Vogel

Puppeteer, actor and director

Martin Vogel was born in Werdau in 1968. After finishing school and working in a factory he studied Puppetry at the “Ernst Busch” Academy of Dramatic Arts (Hochschule für Schauspielkunst “Ernst Busch” in Berlin). While he was still studying he was employed as an actor at the Hebbel Theater in Berlin in Robert Wilson's production of “Doctor Faust Lights the Lights”. From 1994 to 2004 he worked as a puppeteer at the Städtisches Theater Chemnitz. He also worked as an actor and singer in musical productions at the opera house in Chemnitz. He has been a member of the Theater Waidspeicher ensemble from 2004 to 2019. In 2020 “Four Tales of Heaven and Earth” was his debut as a puppetry director.

In the 2026/2027 season, he can be seen as actor and puppeteer in “Pretty Lola, Pleasant Liesel” at Theater Waidspeicher.