Throughout the year, we welcome a wide variety of artists to Mainz Residenz. Here is an overview of the various projects and artists from season 2024/25.

➢Frankfurt-based directing student Jonas Weber was a guest at the Mainz Residenz in September 2024, where he developed an evening of storytelling, myth-making, and the confusion of truth and fiction together with ensemble member Sabah Qalo. Based on countless film anecdotes and fascinating theatrical myths, Sabah Qalo jumps from one story to the next in the tradition of the travelling Arab storytellers, the Hakawati. What is truth, what is fiction? The evening deliberately avoids answering this question. Hakawati premiered at the Kakadu Bar in April 2024.

➢In September/October 2024, assistant director Franziska Sarah Layritz, together with Tima Zucker (amateur actress) and Klaus Köhler (ensemble member), embarked on a humorous yet serious theatrical exploration of the fascination with Schlager music at the Mainz Residenz. The result is the show Schlagerträume: passionate and free from many conventions, Schlager music is to be negotiated, written, composed and, of course, performed here. It is a project about self-determination and equality, about show business, soft music and big emotions. There was a public work-in-progress presentation during the PLUG&PLAY Festival 2025, and on 5 September 2025, Schlagerträume had its official premiere in U17 at the Staatstheater Mainz.

➢In October 2024, interdisciplinary English artist Rhiannon Armstrong worked, researched and refined her White Noise Factory: an accessible and experiential space that reacts to the movements and actions of those present with sounds and noises. Rhiannon Armstrong often works for an unfiltered audience, for people with and without disabilities or special needs. With her project White Noise Factory, she wants to focus on (non-verbal) communication and interaction.

➢In November 2024, director Mark Reisig was a guest at the Mainz Residenz and, together with ensemble member Benjamin Kaygun, developed their project Ziemlich letzte Freunde (Pretty much last friends), a very personal evening revolving around the major themes of life, death, friendship, and compassion. Based on the autobiographical friendship with a person suffering from incurable ALS, this project uses videos, music, and monologues to tell a kaleidoscopic story about death, dying, and helping others through it. What happens when the desire to live breaks, and how do we deal with it?

➢Directors Sascha Malina Hoffmann and Ruben Müller were guests at the Mainz Residenz in January 2025, where they developed the media-based performance Ziegen, die auf Männer starren (The Goats who stare at Men). Looking, gazing, and staring at screens are central parts of the project. They used mostly media content from the 2000s as underlying source material. The act of looking and being looked at was explored, and the question was asked as to which media-mediated images of masculinity we all encountered as recipients in the 2000s.

➢In February/ March 2025, ensemble member Carl Grübel worked together with musican Jacob Bussmann to develop the song recital Lippenbekenntnisse (Lip Service), which explored the question: What if a violent assault leads to unexpected love? On his wedding day, Carl looked back on his special love story with the help of the most romantic love songs and anecdotes. Between tulle, tears, and trauma recovery, it sounds almost too good to be true. Hit me baby one more time! Following their work in the Mainz Residenz, and based on the feedback they received there, Carl and Jacob continued to work on the song recital, which premiered at the Kakadu Bar on 18 September 2025.

➢In March 2025, the Riccardo Moebius Collective (ensemble member Katharina Uhland together with Llewellyn Reichman, Konstantin Bühler, Christoph Coburger) spent a week confronting themselves with questions of identity, borders, and freedom in their project IDENTITY IS THE CRISIS, CAN’T YOU SEE? In advance, Riccardo Moebius had traveled and researched on night trains through Europe, documenting encounters while crossing borders between countries and conventions. An approach to one's own identity through the attempt to understand that of others. The group created an archive that could be directly experienced and accessed by the audience, an endless search, a performance that gave space to unconditional existence.