Martin Kušej

© Arno Declair

Born in Wolfsberg/Carinthia on 14 May 1961. 1979-1982 Studied German Language, Literature and Sport Sciences at Graz University. He moved to Graz University for Music and the Performing Arts and concluded his directorial studies in 1984 as a Master with a production of David Brett’s “Ultramarine” and, in 1985, with a thesis on Robert Wilson. In 1986, after his alternative civil service, he became assistant director at Salzburg Landestheater and moved to the Slovenian National Theatre in Ljubljana in the same function.

Since 1990 he has been working as a freelance director in Slovenia, Austria, Italy and Germany. He founded the independent group “my friend martin” together with the set designer Martin Zehetgruber and the literary manager Sylvia Brandl. In the 1993/1994 season he became in-house director at Stuttgart’s Staatstheater and received the Gertrud Eysoldt Prize for young directors for his production of Schiller’s “Cabal and Love”.

In 1996 he debuted as an opera director in Stuttgart with Henry Purcell/John Dryden’s “King Arthur”. Since then he has produced operas in Stuttgart, Verona, Zurich and at the Salzburg Festival. Towards the end of his time as in-house director in Stuttgart he also produced plays at Vienna’s Burgtheater and at Hamburg’s Thalia Theatre.

In 1999 he was invited to the Berliner Theatertreffen with his Hamburg production of Horváth’s “Tales from the Vienna Woods”. Since the 2000/2001 season he has been working as a freelance director at Vienna’s Burgtheater and at Hamburg’s Thalia Theatre.

From 2004 to 2006, he was the head of drama at the Salzburg Festival for two seasons, then moved on to start working as a freelance opera and theatre director again in the 2006/2007 season, primarily at the Vienna Burgtheater and the Bayerisches Staatsschauspiel, which he inherits as director in 2011.