Legal Law

City Theater Wiener Neustadt is to be modernized

The Wiener Neustadt City Theater will be structurally modernized and reorganized in the coming years. The reopening is planned for the 230th anniversary in autumn 2024. The house is to become “another hotspot of regional culture”, said Governor Johanna Mikl-Leitner (ÖVP) at the presentation of the plans together with Mayor Klaus Schneeberger (ÖVP) and Marie Rötzer, the artistic director of the Lower Austria State Theater.

According to a broadcast on Sunday, the Wiener Neustädter stage will be transformed into a new cultural society. The shareholders of the GmbH are the NÖ Kulturwirtschaft GesmbH (51 percent) and the WN Kul.Tour.Marketing GmbH, the previous operator of the city theater (49 percent). The employees will be taken over.

The program is to be designed with productions by the Lower Austria State Theater, films in cooperation with the “Kino im Kesselhaus” and performances by the Lower Austrian Tonkünstler. Cabarets will be retained, guest performances by touring theaters and operettas will no longer take place. “The operetta metropolis of southern Lower Austria is and will remain Baden”, was emphasized in the broadcast. The space for local theater productions will be retained.

“In a time of massive restrictions, which particularly affect the cultural scene, we want to offer the culture in Lower Austria perspectives”, emphasized Mikl-Leitner. “We are doing this with the realignment of the Wiener Neustadt Theater: not only with the renovation and the economic reorganization, but also with an independent artistic profile that will appeal to guests from home and abroad as well as young audiences and families.”

It is “absolutely necessary to make the house structurally, organizationally and content-wise fit for a successful cultural future,” said Schneeberger. In the new partnership with the state of Lower Austria and its cultural establishments, these steps are “possible with a high level of quality”. With the renovation work, the theater will be brought up to date technically, “but without destroying the characteristics of the unique space,” said the mayor.

Rötzer described it as a “nice challenge” to present the “spoken theater” section to the audience in Wiener Neustadt and the surrounding area with plays and theater projects within the new programming. During the long culture break due to the corona crisis, it became particularly clear how important the theater is as a place of encounter and as a socio-cultural center.

According to a cost estimate, the modernization of the house in Wiener Neustadt will cost around 10.7 million euros. The city is responsible for one third of the funding and the state of Lower Austria for two thirds. The project is to be started in the first quarter of 2021 with an EU-wide plan invention immediately after the resolutions.

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