Rimini Protokoll

Helgard Haug, Stefan Kaegi and Daniel Wetzel form a team of authors-directors since 2000. They are based at HAU, Berlin, since 2003. Their projects in the realm of theater, sound and radio plays, film and installation, emerge as solo, but also in constellations of two or three. Since 2002, all their works have been written collectively under the label Rimini Protokoll. Their work focuses on the continuous development of the theatrical tools, allowing for unusual perspectives on our reality.

For example, Haug, Kaegi, Wetzel have declared a Daimler Shareholder Meeting to be a piece of theater, or staged “100% Stadt (100% City)”, with 100 statistically representative residents of cities like Berlin, Zurich, London, Melbourne, Copenhagen or San Diego. In Berlin and Dresden, they developed accessible Stasi installations/sound plays, in which the observation protocols could be listened to on android telephones. In Hamburg, they staged “Weltklimakonferenz” – a simulation of the UN Conference on climate change. Their last creation is the tetralogy “Staat 1-4” with a focus on post-democratic phenomena.

They have been awarded the NRW Impulse Preis for “Shooting Bourbaki” (2003). “Deadline” (2004), “Wallenstein – Eine Dokumentarische Inszenierung” (2006) and “Situation Rooms” (2014) were invited to the Berliner Theatertreffen. “Schwarzenbergplatz” was nominated for the Austrian theater prize Nestroy in 2005. Moreover, “Mnemopark” was awarded the Jury Prize at the festival “Politik Im Freien Theater” in Berlin in 2005, and, in 2007, “Karl Marx: Das Kapital. Erster Band” (Haug/Wetzel) won both the audience prize at Festival Stücke 2007 and the Mülheimer Dramatiker Preis.

In 2008, they were awarded the Hörspielpreis der Kriegsblinden for “Karl Marx: Das Kapital. Erster Band” (“Peymannbeschimpfung” was also nominated). Rimini Protokoll was awarded the Faust Theater Prize in 2007, the European Prize for New Theater Forms in 2008 and, in 2011, the Silver Lion of the Biennale for Performing Arts in Venice. The multi-player video-installation “Situation Rooms” about the weapon-industry received the Excellence Award of the 17th Japan Media Festival. In 2014, Helgard Haug and Daniel Wetzel were awarded the Deutscher Hörspielpreis der ARD and received the Deutscher Hörbuchpreis der ARD in 2015. In 2015, they also got the Grand Prix Theater/Hans-Reinhart-Ring Award.