Poetry slams, European jazz, even hip-hop – many of today’s immutable cultural currents, genres or institutions have not been around as long as it might seem. The same goes for improv theater. If Tatwort Theater is now celebrating its 30th anniversary, that means that the ensemble is one of the scene’s veterans. Only the fast food theater in Munich is almost a year older.
Back then, in the early 1990s, improv theater was something completely new in Germany. Only the Bonn Springmaus has already toured the country, founded in 1983 by Canadian Bill Mockridge, who then became famous as “Erich Schiller” in “Lindenstraße”.
It was no coincidence that a Canadian led the way. As with Cirque Nouveau, Canada was also the country where the worldwide trend started in the field of improv. In the early 1970s, the British dramaturge Keith Johnstone, who had moved there, incorporated improvisation exercises into his acting classes, developed his own form from them and co-founded the Loose Moose Theater Company in Calgary in 1977. In “Theatersport” teams of actors competed to invent the better scene at the urging of the audience.
For many acting enthusiasts who did not fit into the pattern of acting schools, this was a new entry opportunity. Also for Birgit Quirchmayr from Grafing. She has always been fascinated by acting, she played in the school theater and fought for every moderation and stage situation. After graduating from high school, at 18, she applied to the Otto Falckenberg School. She got a rejection. So she began studying law, her “discovery period,” as she puts it today. Because even before the first state exam, she found out that the dry legal profession would not be her future. She dropped her studies and took acting lessons, which she soon financed with dubbing jobs and small roles in “Marienhof”, for example. And started parallel with like-minded people like Werner Högel – with a break until today a Tatwort player – with the new form of improv theater.
The team consists of 14 women and men
When you become the monthly winner in the talent competition in the team theater at the gas station, the stages announce themselves. The Tatwort Theater finds its first permanent venue in the Fraunhofer. The battle for the audience is quickly won with playfulness, ingenuity and formats such as hat shows and gladiator fights. So good that you soon have to move to larger halls. First to the backyard theater, then to the hurdy-gurdy, still the home of the Tatwort Theater and “our favorite place,” as Quirchmayr puts it.
The hobby group has long since turned into a professional company, a GbR, which Quirchmayr manages together with Annette Hallström. Every Sunday “the ImproShow” is played in the hurdy-gurdy, every last Monday of the month “the FreestyleShow”, on some Saturdays “the Children’s Show”, as well as guest performances and galas. “Funschool”, “Lifeschool” and “Tatwort Business” have long been offered as improv courses, coaching and company training. The team consists of 14 women and men, actors, musicians and technicians.
They are all united by what Quirchmayr calls the “improv gene”. Not every good actor is a good improv performer. You can learn many improv techniques and approaches. “But spontaneity and believing in your partner are most important.” There is no time for long considerations, you have to make something out of the first idea. What exerts an unbroken fascination on Quirchmayr: “I can always be someone else in one evening.”
The first 30 years of this exciting and always funny change of roles will now be celebrated in the hurdy-gurdy at a big jam session. With all current Tatwort actors and many former companions in various game arrangements, free improvisations and musical numbers. And as so often, it all starts with a freeze.
30 Years of Tatword – The Anniversary Jam Marathon, Fri., April 28, 8 p.m., hurdy-gurdy, Rosenheimer Strasse 123, Phone 48 27 42