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Berlin theatre auctions onstage sleepover amid culture budget cuts

Arts Professional
2 min read

A theatre in Berlin is auctioning the chance to bed down on its famous stage, as it seeks new fundraising avenues following citywide cuts to culture budgets.

Berliner Ensemble, established in 1949 by actor Helene Weigel and her husband, the playwright Bertolt Brecht, listed a sleepover experience on eBay last week for €250. 

Currently, the bid stands at €1500, offering the winner the opportunity to enjoy sleeping in the venue with up to four guests on January 28.

The experience includes tickets to the current production of Brecht’s The Caucasian Chalk Circle, after which a double bed will be set up on stage. An ensemble member will read the winning bidder a bedtime poem before the stage fire safety curtain comes down at 11.30 pm.

Breakfast the following day is included at the Berliner Ensemble canteen alongside the company’s artistic director, Oliver Reese.

Reese said the unusual fundraising approach is a response to the Berlin Senate’s sweeping culture budget cuts last year.

“We took the politicians’ suggestions to heart and looked for new avenues,” said Reese.

In November, Berliner Ensemble was one of around 450 Berlin arts organisations in receipt of state subsidies to launch an appeal to the city’s Christian Democrat-led government asking them to reconsider €130m (£108.6m) of funding cuts, which amount to more than 12% of the current annual budget.

Reese previously told the Guardian that the cuts would lead to “horror scenarios”.
“We are in the process of cancelling five to six productions for 2025/26 and 2026/27. In the end, there will simply be less new art.”

The Mayor of Berlin, Kai Wegner, has defended the cuts, saying: “I think we have to get away from the mentality of ‘we need money from the state.’

“I also expect our theatres and opera houses to explain exactly how they can operate more economically and with their own resources. This is a task that applies to all of us – regardless of which area we work in.”