We produce two plays every year
Comedies in the summer, serious plays in the winter
For many years our plays were mostly, well actually almost always comedies. We now usually perform a serious play in February and a comedy at the end of July / beginning of August.
The EDS celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2022 having first taken to the stage in 1972 with a production of “The Country Wife” by William Wycherley. Since then the ever-changing company of students, lecturers and professors and their friends, spouses, children and pets, has produced 99 plays altogether.
99 productions from A - Z (almost)
Something for everyone – and not always Shakespeare
We’ve performed plays by Ayckbourn, Allen and Albee, Beckett and Bolt, Fry and Friel, Sheridan, Stoppard, Shaw and Shakespeare, Wilde and Wilder.
We've played Aristocrats and artisans, barons and beggars, colonels and clowns, damsels and dowagers, elves and fairies, gods and harlots, idiots and jades, kangaroos and lovers, magicians and nymphs, officers and priests, quacks and ringmasters, sirens and troubadours, upstarts, virgins, wastrels, xylophones and zeds. We’ve played them all.
The director
The EDS is currently directed by Kirsten Henry, a former student of Theatre Studies and English at the University of Erlangen.
Kirsten joined the EDS as as student in 2001 when she acted in the production ‘Front Page’. She has since appeared on stage in a number of EDS plays and also been regularly involved in the technical side (lighting, stage design) of several shows.
Since taking over the role of director in October 2006 she has directed the last 32 plays from “The Taming of the Shrew” in February 2007 to “As You Like It” in 2024.
The EDS has seen a number of directors over its 52 year history – 15 to be precise. The longest serving director is Damian Quinn who over a period of 20 years directed no fewer than 39 EDS productions.
The theatre
For more than 50 years the EDS has been a regular guest in the Experimentiertheater, at the end of each university semester.
The Experimentiertheater (The “EX”) is situated within the main building of the faculty of philosophy and ‘Audimax’ in Erlangen and is part of the Institute for Theatre and Media. It is a technically well-equipped theatre with some of the latest light and sound technology, a variable stage area, variable seating and space for audiences of up to approximately 150 people.
Having opened in 1970 as a central university facility, the Experminetiertheater celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2020 – just two years ahead of the EDS.
Please note: the summer 2024 production of As You Like It takes place in the FIS Theatre at the Franconian International School
The EDS in numbers
A Midsummer Night's Dream
... is the play most often performed by the EDS in its 52 year history (7 times to date, the latest in 2023).
William Shakespeare
... is (not surprisingly) the playwright whose plays have been performed most often: 13 plays, 36 including repeats.
99 productions
... have been produced by the EDS since 1972, 30 of them by the current director, the 15th to be in charge of the group.
Since 1972 the EDS has performed a play almost every semester, at the very least once a year. The longest break was four university semesters from summer 2020 - winter 2022 during the coronavirus pandemic.