Friederike Brendler

Friederike Brendler studied Applied Theatre Studies at Justus Liebig University in Giessen. As a dramaturg, she particularly enjoys working with experimental formats and queer-feminist narratives that bridge the gap between musical theatre and outreach. She is especially interested in forms of theatre that break down barriers and open up different ways of engaging with musical theatre. From 2024 to 2026, she was involved in the programme development of MiR.LAB at Musiktheater im Revier from the very beginning and provided dramaturgical support for numerous outreach projects, urban space formats and stage productions. Together with Dominik Hallerbach, she staged, amongst other things, the street musical ‘Neustern in der Gelekxie’ and the mystery radio play ‘Gizemli Çorba’ in Gelsenkirchen. With director Nora Krahl, she developed several world premieres at the Musiktheater im Revier, including the cyber-operetta ‘Göttinnen’ and the puppet theatre production ‘Jede Menge Unsterblichkeit’. In collaboration with the physical theatre collective sticky fragments, she created the pop opera “Ghost Me, If You Can”, which features integrated audio description; during its development, she focused in particular on accessibility in theatre. At MiR.LAB, she also engaged intensively with digital media and new technologies as artistic tools and, as a media dramaturg, was part of Ensemble Modern’s International Composer and Conductor Seminar 2024. During her studies, Friederike Brendler co-founded the performance collective sandyatemyheart with Anna Schill and Maret Zeino-Mahmalat. With the queer lip-sync musicals “Pandora’s Heart” and ‘Save a Horse, Ride a Cowgirl’, the collective performed at venues including the Radikal Jung! Festival at the Munich Volkstheater, the OutNOW! Festival at the Theatre Bremen, the Ballhaus Ost, the SchwuZ club in Berlin and the Ost-Passage Theatre in Leipzig. At the Theater Bremen, Friederike Brendler worked as a dramaturg on the NOperas! production “Kitesh”, directed by HAUEN UND STECHEN. For Arnold Schönberg’s *Erwartung*, she assisted the music theatre collective Opéra sur Tréteaux at the Schlossplatztheater in Berlin and was involved at the Halle Opera as a dramaturgical assistant on, amongst other things, the world premiere of *Im Stein* by Sara Glojnarić and Clemens Meyer. She also performed at the Tischlerei of the Deutsche Oper Berlin in “Neue Szenen V: Scheiterhaufen – unser Vater | Vater unser” and as a hen in the children’s opera “Pettersson und Findus und der Hahn im Korb” in Gelsenkirchen. After completing her A-levels at the Clara-Wieck-Gymnasium, a school specialising in the arts in Zwickau, Friederike Brendler undertook a Federal Voluntary Service placement at the Semperoper in Dresden. This was followed by work placements at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden in Berlin, the Leipzig Opera, the Halle Opera, the Mittelsächsisches Theater in Döbeln/Freiberg and the Mecklenburg State Theatre in Schwerin.