The Thespis Center at the Deutsch-Sorbisches Volkstheater in Bautzen has brought refugees and locals together on stage. Now the institution, which has existed since 2017, is struggling to survive because its funding was not extended at the beginning of the year. As the project sponsor, the Bautzen theater had filed an appeal against the decision of the Sächsische Aufbaubank. However, it was unsuccessful. "We are completely up in the air," said artistic director Lutz Hillmann.
The Thespis Center works with children, young people and adults from different linguistic and cultural backgrounds. These include Germans and Sorbs as well as people from Syria, Afghanistan, Russia and Ukraine, who meet in Bautzen for workshops, language cafés or theater plays. Hillmann stated that it had been demonstrably and exemplarily successful in creating empathy and understanding for one another.
In 2020, the Thespis Center was awarded the Saxon Integration Prize. In January of this year, Georg Genoux, the long-standing director of the center, received the Saxon Lessing Prize - largely for his dedicated work in Bautzen.
