Leibniz Theatre

The Leibniz Theater stood in Hannover’s Calenberger Neustadt on Kommandaturstraße, a small cabaret and variety stage with just eighty-five seats. The building began life in the early 20th century as a lithographic workshop, its upper floor still showing the heavy stone-lifting tackle once used to lower printing plates to the basement store. After the Second World War it served as a margarine warehouse before Wolfgang Werner turned it into the Werkstatt-Galerie Calenberg in 1981, offering pottery alongside performances. The theatre became a platform for more than three hundred events every year, hosting both local and international artists. Figures such as Rüdiger Hoffmann, Helmut Ruge and Volker Pispers appeared on its stage during the Calenberger Kabarettwochen founded in 1984. In 1993 director Erika-Maria Lehmann chose the venue for her amateur group Die Tribüne, and in 1995 Klaus Urban recorded a live album there. After renovation it reopened in January 2017 under its present name, Leibniz Theater, with Matthias Brodowy as patron. Visitors found a single auditorium with plain wooden benches and a small stage framed by the old lithographic gear. The room held barely enough space for the regular crowd of regulars who came for the monthly programmes. The theatre’s walls carried posters from past shows and a corner display of programmes signed by performers. Despite its modest size, the space carried decades of laughter and debate before its final closure in October 2023.