Amélie Niermeyer | © Elsa Okazaki
Department Head
Teacher

Univ.-Prof.

Amélie Niermeyer

Univ.-Prof. for Acting & DirectionThomas Bernhard Institute
Amélie Niermeyer has directed at the Thalia Theater in Hamburg, Schauspiel Frankfurt, the Deutsches Theater in Berlin, in Basel and Los Angeles, and regularly at the Residenztheater in Munich, among others. Since 2011, she has been a professor of acting and directing at the Mozarteum University.
Amélie Niermeyer attended high school in Bonn and high school in St. Louis, Missouri. After graduating from high school, Niermeyer completed her directing studies in Sydney and studied German and theater studies in Bonn and Munich. She started her directing career at the age of 23 at the Residenztheater in Munich and shortly afterwards won the City of Munich's advancement award with Wedekind's Spring Awakening. In 1991 she became head director at the Dortmund Theater and two years later returned to the Residenztheater in Munich as resident director. At the age of 31 she moved to Frankfurt and became senior director at the Schauspiel Frankfurt. From 2001 to 2005 she was General Manager of the Freiburg Theater and from 2006 to 2011 the Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus.  Her greatest successes in Munich include Rottweiler by Thomas Jonigk, Hedda Gabler by Ibsen, Maria Stuart by Schiller as well as 2014 Shakespeare's What You Want and 2017 Kolte's Return to the Desert, each with Juliane Köhler in the leading role. For several years she has also worked in the opera. After her first productions at the Deutsche Oper am Rhein in Düsseldorf, she staged Berg's Wozzeck, Mozart's La Clemenza di Tito, Verdi's Rigoletto and the staged premiere of Max Brand's Stormy Interlude in Salzburg, as well as Cavalli's Veremonda at the Schwetzingen Festival and in 2016 Donizett's La Favorite (with Elīna Garanča) at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich.

In the 2016/17 season she staged Rossini's Elisabetta at the Theater an der Wien. In the 2017/18 season followed the productions of Gloria by Branden Jacob-Jenkins at the Residenztheater in Munich and Paul Hindemith's opera Cardillac in Salzburg. In the fall of 2018, she is staging Verdi's Otello with Jonas Kaufmann in the title role and Kyrill Petrenkow on the podium. Productions in Salzburg, at the Theater an der Wien and at the Hamburg State Opera have followed since 2019. Musical theater productions at the Vienna State Opera, at the Hamburg State Opera, at the Salzburg State Theater and at the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona followed. Her "Kirschgarten" was nominated for the Nestroy in the Theater in der Josefstadt in 2020.