Tessa Hart has been a culture maker and culture changer in the performing arts, film, community work and socio-cultural fields for over 15 years, working across interfaces and boundaries. Since July 2024, Tessa Hart has been a consultant for qualification programs at kultur_formen (Berlin Project Fund for Cultural Education). In addition, Tessa Hart's ongoing activities range from curation and participation in selection committees, such as at the Max Ophüls Preis film festival since 2020, to mediation and educational work, to artistic direction of the collective company Goblin Baby Co. since 2013. Previously, Tessa was project manager and artistic director of AfroPolitan Berlin from 2020 to 2024, co-founder and artistic and managing co-director of the Bread & Roses Theatre in London from 2012 to 2022 and has contributed to seven book publications since 2018. Born in the GDR, raised near Berlin and in Brussels, Tessa Hart lived in London for almost a decade and has been back in Berlin since 2018. Throughout all of this, Tessa Hart has navigated very intersectional worlds of experience, with expertise critical of power and discrimination as well as a commitment to equal opportunities and cultural reflection on actual social realities always being a leitmotif.

Shirin Sojitrawalla, born in Freiburg im Breisgau in 1968, studied German, comparative literature and political science before completing an editorial traineeship at the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Since 2000, she has worked as a freelance cultural journalist focusing on theater and literature for various newspapers and radio stations (taz, Theater der Zeit, nachtkritik.de, Deutschlandfunk, SWR, WDR, Frankfurter Hefte and others). From 2016 to 2020 she was a juror at the Berlin Theatertreffen, from 2021 to 2024 she was a member of the jury for the Leipzig Book Fair Prize. She lives in Wiesbaden.

Christina Zintl has been co-director of Schauspiel Essen with Selen Kara since the 2023/2024 season. She was born in Bonn and studied scenic arts in Hildesheim and Aix-en-Provence / Marseille. She was director of the Theatertreffen Stückemarkt and dramaturge of the Theatertreffen from 2012-2018. She is an experienced festival and production dramaturge and has worked at renowned theaters, including the Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus, the Bayerisches Staatsschauspiel and the Staatstheater Nürnberg; here she has worked in various artistic and management positions, including as managing dramaturge/member of the drama management of the Staatstheater Nürnberg. She worked as a production dramaturge with renowned directors and was mainly responsible for contemporary drama, play development and interdisciplinary works. As a curator, she is responsible for discursive-artistic programs, especially on intersectional-feminist topics. She has lectured at the FU Berlin and the Mozarteum Salzburg, among others. In 2018 and 2019, she co-directed the industry meeting of the Berlin Performing Arts Program, most recently at the Sophiensaele, Berlin. She has performed with the performance group "Hotel Europa" at the Maxim Gorki Theater and HAU Hebbel am Ufer, Berlin, among others. In addition to new plays, new forms and discursive formats, her work focuses on opening up urban theater to urban society - especially through co-creation processes.

Stephan Czuratis, born in Staßfurt in 1984, is passionate about culture. He has been the director of the Salzlandtheater Staßfurt since 2016. His involvement in INTHEGA, where he has been active since 2017 and has headed up the eastern regional group since 2019, demonstrates his wide-ranging interest in the cultural and theatrical landscape. A commitment that paid off: the Salzlandtheater received the Salzlandkreis Culture Prize in 2020 and the Federal Theater Prize in 2021. As drummer in the band FiJazzKo, he has performed in numerous concert projects and musicals. In 2011, he toured the USA. He shared his musical expertise as a percussion teacher at private and public music schools. He has also been enriching local life as an honorary local politician since 2017. In his private life, he is happily married and lives with his wife and two children in Saxony-Anhalt.

Michael Lang has been the director of the Ohnsorg Theater, one of Germany's best-known theatres, since August 1, 2017. With the aim of creating authentic, touching, multi-layered folk theater at the pulse of the times, in which the Low German language plays a leading role, the theater carefully and persistently builds bridges between tradition and further development on its two stages, but also on numerous external playing fields, also with regard to the younger generations, who generally no longer grow up with the Low German language. In recent years, the theater has been repeatedly awarded prizes for this, for example the "Monica Bleibtreu Prize" and the "Hamburg Theater Prize Rolf Mares".

Previously, Michael Lang was director of the Winterhuder Fährhaus comedy theater in Hamburg for 19 years. He created an important addition there with the independent theater KONTRASTE in the small hall with contemporary drama. The theater received the Pegasus Prize for Private Theater for this in 2004 and again in 2016.

After graduating from high school in Hamburg, Michael Lang initially trained as an orchestral musician and music teacher, and was a clarinettist in the Hamburg Philharmonic State Orchestra (State Opera) for six years before deciding to study cultural and media management. Michael Lang is still active at the Hamburg University of Music and Drama today, as Chairman of the University Council.

After completing her degree in economics, Ayla Yeginer first worked as a press officer at the Winterhuder Fährhaus comedy theater, then as a dramaturge and production manager at Theater KONTRASTE in Hamburg. She has been working as a director since 2012. In Hamburg, she also runs her own café until she moves to Hildesheim in 2020, where she is engaged as acting director and in-house director at the theater für niedersachsen. For her production of "Kleiner Mann - was nun?" at the Ohnsorg Studio, she received the Theaterpreis Hamburg - Rolf Mares in the category "Outstanding Director" in 2022. At the University of Hildesheim, she teaches at the Institute for Media, Theater and Popular Culture. Together with students from the Department of Cultural Studies and Aesthetic Communication, she is creating the documentary play "The Road to Hell is Paved with Good Intentions", which addresses the topic of sexualized violence against children and young people in a church context and will premiere at the theater für niedersachsen in 2024. Ayla Yeginer is currently working on further research into this topic. From the 2025/2026 season, she will take over the artistic directorship of the Ernst Deutsch Theater Hamburg together with Daniel Schütter.

Bettina Masuch studied theater studies in Giessen. After working as a dramaturg at the Kaaitheater in Brussels and the Theaterhaus Jena, she moved to the Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz in Berlin in 1998, where she worked as a dramaturg for productions by Frank Castorf, Christoph Schlingensief and René Pollesch, among others. In 2002 and 2003 she was production dramaturge for the choreographer Meg Stuart at the Schauspielhaus Zürich. From 2003 to 2008, Bettina Masuch worked as a dance curator for Berlin's Theater Hebbel am Ufer. Until 2008, she was a member of the artistic direction of the renowned dance festival "Tanz im August" and was also responsible for its 25th anniversary edition in 2013. She was artistic director of the Springdance Festival in Utrecht from 2009 to 2013. From January 2014, Bettina Masuch was artistic director of tanzhaus nrw in Düsseldorf, which was awarded the "Theaterpreis des Bundes" under her directorship in 2017. She is the editor and author of various specialist publications and holds teaching positions at national and international universities. Bettina Masuch is a member of various juries and expert commissions, including the German Federal Cultural Foundation, the Fonds Darstellende Künste and the Goethe-Institut. She has been Artistic Director of the Festspielhaus St. Pölten since fall 2022.

Anta Helena Recke is a German-Senegalese artist. She works with performance, concept, copy and re-enactment, writing and video. She spent her training years studying scenic arts at the University of Hildesheim and as an assistant director at the Münchner Kammerspiele. In the Theater heute critics' survey, she was voted Emerging Artist of the Year 2018, she also received the 2019 International Theatre Institute Prize and the Tabori Award in 2020. Her directorial works "MITTELREICH" and "Die Kränkungen der Menschheit" were invited to the Berlin Theatertreffen. She is a co-founder of the German Museum for Black Entertainment and Black Music and collaborates as a dramaturg in the performative arts with Joana Tischkau and Jeremy Nedd. Since 2021 she has occasionally been involved in various writers' rooms (Jünglinge Film, Netflix). In 2023, she made her series debut in screenwriting and directing with "Made in Germany" (ARD Degeto). Recke is a fellow of the Berlin Artistic Research Program 2024/25.

Mey Seifan is a member of the board of the Landesverband der Freien Darstellenden Künste (LAFT). She is also actively involved in the "Access and Transformation" working group of the Bundesverband Freie Darstellende Künste (BFDK) and in the United Network's national cultural policy network. These roles enable her to actively influence cultural policy issues and improve conditions for the independent performing arts community.

Mey began her training at the ballet school in Damascus and continued it at the HfMDK in Frankfurt before completing a degree in theater studies at the LMU in Munich. She is the first professionally trained dancer in Syria and is considered a pioneer of the Arab performing arts scene, whose innovative works and projects have contributed significantly to the development and recognition of this art form in the region.

In her work, she always deals with social and political issues and explores their influence on both individuals and society. Since the Arab Spring, she has dedicated herself to themes such as collective trauma, dreaming under totalitarian governments and PTSD, resulting in projects such as "Destruction for Beginners", "Siesta" and "Reality Check". Her most recent works, including the VR project "How am I here?!" and the event "Double Learning: Humans, Machines and Inclusivity in the AI Sphere", extend these discourses into the digital space.

Mey Seifan is committed to feminist values and strives to build bridges and strengthen networks through her work.