Munich: Thomas Linsmayer is to direct the German Theater

Created: 01/27/2022, 19:00

By: Sascha Karowski, Michael Schleicher

The Deutsches Theater on Schwanthalerstrasse: Thomas Linsmayer becomes interim director.

© Robert Goetzfried/Deutsches Theater Munich

The Deutsches Theater Munich gets an interim boss.

Lawyer, art historian and culture manager Thomas Linsmayer is to lead the city's stage in the future.

The negotiations are on the right track: according to information from "Münchner Merkur", the lawyer, art historian and cultural manager Thomas Linsmayer is to become the new head of the Deutsches Theater. The decision should be made public by Monday at the latest. Linsmayer will take office on Schwanthalerstrasse on Tuesday, February 1st. The musical version of the horror classic “Jekyll & Hyde” will premiere here on February 3rd. Katrin Haben Schaden (Greens), Munich's second mayor and chairman of the supervisory board of the Deutsches Theater, did not want to comment on the personnel when asked. Linsmayer also does not want to comment on the debate. He is to lead the stage as interim boss. The city will advertise the position, and the application process is not expected to be completed until the second half of the year.

Deutsches Theater Munich: Management duo dismissed

The replacement at the head of the theater became necessary because the supervisory board of the municipal theater recalled Werner Steer and Carmen Bayer, managing directors of the house since 2007, at the end of this month.

This decision was made with great clarity at a special meeting of the panel last Friday, January 21, 2022.

The background is allegations that became known in December that the duo did not pass on 130,000 euros for the Munich allowance and the job ticket to the employees of the Deutsches Theater. Steer and Bayer concede this, but also make it clear that the money is "fully available in the accounts of Betriebs GmbH". There was "at no time" the intention to "use these funds inappropriately," as Werner Steer writes in a written statement to our newspaper. "Neither Carmen Bayer nor I had the slightest advantage from this approach, but we acted as we saw it as our duty, in the interests of the company and the legal requirements." In city council circles it is now feared that both managing directors, whose contracts would actually have run until the end of 2025,could take legal action against their dismissal.

Deutsches Theater: public tender for the management post

Thomas Linsmayer should now maneuver the house, in which the recent debates have naturally caused unrest among the workforce, into calmer waters.

The lawyer has made a name for himself above all in cultural work in the west of Munich: he provides legal advice to the Pasing factory;

here he also works as an exhibition organizer.

He has been managing the gallery in the municipal cultural center not far from the Pasing train station for 22 years.

He is also responsible for the cultural center Fürstenried and between 2011 and 2020 he was in charge of the "Artist in Residence" program of the state capital in the Ebenböckhaus in Pasing.

Deutsches Theater: The premiere of "Jekyll & Hyde" is on February 3rd

Linsmayer studied art history in Munich and has been admitted to the bar since September 1999.

His law firm in Bogenhausen has a branch in Ludwigsvorstadt-Isarvorstadt.

From there, he won't have far to go to the Deutsches Theater from February.

In terms of content, he will not be able to put his own stamp on the musical stage for the time being: the schedule is in place until October, provided that it can be planned that far in advance in times of Corona.

However, it is possible that it is a completely different skill that Thomas Linsmayer will need most urgently in his new position.

He states that “mediation” is one of the focal points of his law firm’s work.

And this talent really can't do any harm at the Deutsches Theater at the moment.