Junges Theater Bonn

The Junge Theater Bonn stands in Bonn-Beuel, a lively district on the right bank of the Rhine. It is a private children’s and youth theatre with its own professional ensemble. The building was once a 19th-century cinema and now seats up to 400 people. In 1994 it changed its name from Theater der Jugend to Junge Theater Bonn. A foundation set up in 2014 bought the Hermannstraße building and carried out a full renovation to make it accessible. The theatre’s studio stage is the Kuppelsaal above the Thalia bookshop in central Bonn. The theatre is one of Germany’s most successful venues for young audiences. Each season it presents around 400 performances in Bonn and another 100 on tour elsewhere. In 2017 it gave more than 500 shows to roughly 150 000 spectators. Its distinctive ‘Bonner Modell’ casts real children and teenagers alongside adult professionals. The house has premiered works such as Cornelia Funke’s Tintenherz – Das Musical and Drachenreiter, which ran 70 times in its first year. Recent hits include Tschick and the German-language first staging of Beautiful Thing. Visitors enter a restored 19th-century auditorium with modern stage and safety equipment. The main house seats 400, while the smaller Kuppelsaal above the bookshop hosts additional performances. The theatre’s own school, the JTB-Werkstatt founded in 2001, trains nearly a thousand young people in ninety different workshops. Programme notes list productions like Geheime Freunde and Monsieur Ibrahim und die Blumen des Koran. Awards include the 2007 ‘Land of Ideas’ prize and the 2020 NRWandler accolade.