Gerhardt Haag: born in 1949. From 1970 till 1973 he has been trained as an actor at the Max-Reinhardt-Schule (today: UdK) in former West Berlin. He was able to accomplish his first theater production in 1971 with George Tabori. After his apprenticeship he worked four years in various national theaters in Giessen and Mainz. After three years of theater educational work he founded with his colleagues in 1981 the Freie Werkstatt Theater in Cologne, in which he worked as till 1986 as one of the directors. Within this period of time he was in charge, among other tasks, of a German-turkish theater project on the issue of forced marriage of Turkish young girls (1982) named “Nein/Hayir”. From 1986 till 1995, Gerhardt Haag worked as a freelancer in various theaters and a Spokesman. He also initiated a German-arabic theater project on the issue of emigration of young people migrating from the Maghreb countries to Europe (1994/1995) called “Hanîn/Sehnsucht”, which also toured through Morocco. In 1995 he undertook the leadership at the Theater im Bauturm – Freies Schauspiel Köln till the end of the season 2015/2016. In 1991, 1996 and 2004 he was a supporter of Cologne Theater Awards. Since 1998, he visited numerous dance, theater and film festivals primarily in West Africa (Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Benin, etc.). In 2010/2011 he developed with Etienne Minoungou, from the festival „Récréâtrales“, and Kerstin Ortmeier the idea and the foundation for the biennial africologneFESTIVAL in Ouagadougou. In December 2013 he was honored with the Cologne Theater prize as one of the most affecting personalities of the free theater scene.
