In the 2025/26 season, the Theater Regensburg is finally set to become a state theatre. This makes it the sixth house that the Free State has raised to this rank, and the process has also been initiated for the Mainfranken Theater in Würzburg. In Regensburg, the conversion from the municipal theater to the state theater is to be completed step by step, as agreed by the Ministry of Art and the city last week.
As announced by the theater and the ministry, the state subsidy rate should be gradually increased in three steps until there is equal funding between the state and the city. In 2023, the Free State will support the house with 35 percent. So far, the theater has been financed as an independent municipal company for the most part by the city of Regensburg. The joint key issues paper also set the goal of further expanding the artistic quality of the theater and thus strengthening its national importance.
In April, Markus Söder announced that the multi-genre house with the areas of music theater, drama, dance and young theater as well as its own philharmonic orchestra and opera choir would become a state theater. “There was a lack of a state theater in East Bavaria,” the prime minister justified this step.