Completely unacceptable: hearings like on an assembly line

Press Release

Mass dismissal due to change of director at the Landestheater Schwaben

Augsburg/Memmingen, June 29, 2023. Without naming concrete reasons and without consideration of individual fates, the designated artistic director Sarah Kohrs gets rid of highly qualified colleagues with non-renewal notices. 77% of the performing artists, 50% of the dramaturges, 50% of the assistant directors, 100% of the set designers are to be dismissed with the beginning of her directorship. This blatantly contradicts her statement of February 7, 2023: "Everything is there, the Landestheater is very well positioned."

GDBA believes that personnel continuity and social security also mean artistic expertise. In Memmingen, an artistic director can rely on a strong team that has started fresh. To put forward a supposed need for variety on the part of the audience is not a comprehensible justification for this clear cut after just two years.

Erik Völker, regional chairman of GDBA Bavaria: "After three minutes, the spook was over. The hearings went on like an assembly line. Kohrs lacks elementary skills like empathy. This is out of time and unacceptable." Moreover, social considerations were not even taken into account. Wolfgang Schwaninger, GDBA's legal counsel: "It borders on mass layoffs, only without a social plan."

The GDBA Bavarian regional association therefore demands an immediate withdrawal of the mass dismissal plans of Sarah Kohrs and calls for a cooperation between the designated artistic director and the existing artistic team for at least one season.

If you have any questions, please contact Erik Völker, Chairman of the GDBA Bavarian Regional Association: lvby@gdba.de