State theater Kassel fires acting director Nickel-Thönicke!

State theater Kassel fires acting director Nickel-Thönicke!

At the Staatstheater Kassel there are fundamental changes: The acting director Patricia Nickel-Thönicke was dismissed today with immediate effect. This decision was made for reasons of personnel law, but concrete details on the termination are not published. Nickel-Thönicke was originally supposed to hold her position in Kassel in 2026 and thus follow Marie Rötzer, such as Kleine Zeitung reported.

The termination was announced on April 23, 2025, one day before the presentation of the new game plan. Nickel-Thönicke is accused that a deep dismissal with the artistic director Florian Lutz is responsible for the separation. Her lawyer announced that it would take legal action against the decision and emphasized that Nickel-Thönicke denies the allegations. According to hna it is pointed out to the high fluctuation in the management level of the theater, which reflects the continued problems in the management of the theater.

Disturbed working atmosphere?

Patricia Nickel-Thönicke has been working at the Kassel State Theater since 2021 and had a stable contract in these five years. She was known for her networking in the Kassel cultural scene and, among other things, organized a Ramadan festival and theater evenings in the club scene. Her area of ​​responsibility comprised over 18 actors: inside, ten assistant: inside and dramaturge: inside and around 30 freelance theater people per season. Under her leadership, the space utilization was last 71.1 percent.

The managing directors of the Lower Austria Landestheater have optimistically commented on Nickel-Thönicke's skills. They believe that they can inform the circumstances of the separation. For Nickel-Thönicke, who was born in Potsdam in 1979 and grew up in Schwalmstadt, intensive legal challenges are now imminent, while the State Theater plans to find a successor promptly: in to find stability within the season.

theater landscape under pressure

The situation in the Staatstheater Kassel also raises questions about the general situation in theater management. An analysis of the current theater landscape shows that 56% of artistic employees: Live inside under precarious conditions and often have to work on the side to make ends meet. In addition, there are topics such as workload and inaccurate capacity measurements that make it difficult to demand necessary areas and increases in subsidies, such as Cultural Management

These developments arouse interest in the challenges that the theater faces. Modern personnel management, which deals with the social and financial framework of the artists, is becoming more and more urgent. In order to secure the future of the theater in the long term, both social justice and new missions within the theater structures have to be increasingly focused on.