Leonie Böhm

Leonie Böhm grew up in Heilbronn, where she attended a Rudolf Steiner school; she is now the mother of two children, who constantly remind her to question herself, to push herself further and who introduce a completely different reality into her life. Having completed three different courses of study, she has a wide-ranging set of skills and interests, and now works as a director, performer and visual artist both independently and for the city theatre. She started off getting a teaching degree in art and German language and literature, and took part in a training course in art mediation organised by the documenta 7 contemporary art exhibition under Carmen Mörsch and Ulrich Schötker. The fundamental question of who can be an authorised speaker in an educational situation, and what power relations are involved, as well as the search for responsible speakers and successful communication have guided her work to this day. In her art studies, which she completed in 2011 as part of Urs Lüthi’s master class at the Kunsthochschule Kassel, she tried to bring a wider spectrum of forms of expression to these questions. Leonie Böhm ended up coming to the theatre in order to create artistic processes in cooperation with other people. She worked at the Münchner Kammerspiele, the Theater Bremen, the Theater Oberhausen and as inhouse director at the Schauspielhaus Zürich (2019-2024). She is still as interested as ever in canonical texts, and how we relate to them and project our own needs and ideas onto them. Her productions reflect a position that is as vulnerable as it is demanding, and all of her work makes it clear that she believes in human beings who are as responsible as they are reckless.

For Medea* Leonie Böhm was awarded the Kurt-Hübner-Regiepreis 2021 and invited to the Berlin Theatertreffen; in August, Maja Beckmann was named Actress of the Year by Theater heute critics for her performance in Medea*. In the 23/24 season, Leonie Böhm directed Blutstück based on the novel by Kim de l'Horizon and was invited with this work to the Wiener Festwochen and the Autor:innentage in Berlin, among others.