The return to “Offenbachplatz” for the 2024/25 season will set the course for Cologne's theatres. To prepare the necessary council decisions, the City of Cologne is now initiating a working group. actori has provided an important basis for this with an economic and organizational study. The aim of the study is to show how the Bühnen Köln can be developed in a structured way into a powerful and efficient cultural operation, centered at “Offenbachplatz”.
After conclusion of a significantly extended interim, the Bühnen Köln return with their high artistic level of a diverse range of offerings. Different scenarios, calculations, comparative studies, alternatives, and consequences for the operation of the stages have been evaluated on more than 1,000 pages in 2014 and 2020. Topics included the necessary operating subsidy, the preservation of infrastructure, the expansion of dance offerings into a producing division and the number of stage locations.
"The implementation of the concept will enable the stages to constantly develop into an efficient stage operation that sustainably uses the opportunities arising from the renovation of the building."
Patrick Wasserbauer, Managing Director of Bühnen Köln, agrees that the concept is an essential building block for the theatre's operations in the newly renovated building:
"It is gratifying that the benchmark analysis shows that Bühnen Köln is already an efficient cultural operation. The continuous investments envisaged in the report, in building and theatre technology, will almost certainly never again produce a refurbishment case like the one in 2012."
Over the years, the projects were implemented by Marietta Schoenberg, Dr. Nora Pähler vor der Holte, (both) Project Management and Frank Schellenberg, Managing Director.