Marie Schleef

Marie Schleef completed her Bachelor of Arts in Theater and Performance at Bard College in New York in 2014. She then studied drama directing at the Ernst Busch Academy of Dramatic Arts. This was followed by assistant directing positions at the Volksbühne Berlin, including with Susanne Kennedy. Her diploma production “The Journey to the Lighthouse” (based on the novel of the same name by Virginia Woolf) at the Volksbühne Berlin was invited to the Körber Studio for Young Directors 2019. Her long durational performance “NAME HER. A Search for Women” in co-production with the Ballhaus Ost (Berlin) and the Kosmos Theater (Vienna), as well as in cooperation with the Münchner Kammerspiele, was invited to the 2021 Theatertreffen. She received the Kurt Hübner Directing Prize 2022 for her direction of “Once I lived with a stranger” at Schauspielhaus Köln. She also directed “Die Geschichte einer Stunde” by Kate Chopin at Ballhaus Ost in 2021 and was awarded the CHANEL Next Prize, which honors 10 innovative young artists worldwide. This was followed by the productions of “The Mushroom Queen” by Liz Ziemska at the Deutsches Schauspielhaus Hamburg in 2022 and “Kim Jiyoung, born 1982” by Cho Nam-Joo at the Schauspielhaus Köln in 2023. Marie Schleef is adapting Shirley Jackson’s short story “The Possibility of Evil” at the Münchner Kammerspiele in the 2023/24 season.