Katharina Gericke was born in Kyritz in 1966. After graduating from high school, she began an internship at the Hans Otto Theater in Potsdam in 1984. In 1990, she began studying Jewish Studies, German Language and Literature, and Theater Studies at the Free University of Berlin. In 1995, she completed a degree in dramatic writing at the Berlin University of the Arts and has since worked as a freelance playwright at numerous theaters, including the Schaubühne Berlin, the Staatsschauspiel Dresden, the Staatstheater Stuttgart, and theaters in Heidelberg and Tübingen. In addition to her ongoing work in Berlin’s independent theater scene, she has been the resident writer for the Landesbühne Niedersachsen Nord in Wilhelmshaven for several years. Katharina Gericke has received awards and scholarships for her plays and prose works. She has participated in the Days of German-Language Literature in Klagenfurt and the Weeks of German-Language Drama at the Goethe Institutes in London and Moscow. Among other things, she has also worked as a lecturer in dramatic writing at the University of the Arts and the Ernst Busch Academy of Dramatic Arts. Katharina Gericke has a daughter and lives in Berlin.
Press reviews:
“A playwright ventures into prose”
“Playwright Katharina Gericke is one of six German candidates for the 2014 Bachmann Prize”
“It stands to reason that Katharina Gericke will read a story set in a historical context. However, it will be exciting to see whether her stage-tested language finds its way into the narrative.”
By Katharina Tummes – Contribution from the Contemporary Cultures editorial team at the University of Duisburg-Essen
“Gericke’s text ‘Down Down Down’, an opera and artist’s text invited by Burkhard Spinnen, is considered the early favorite. A ‘little piece of magic’ that is very beautifully done. “The characters seem like soap bubbles” that the author can ‘pop’ at any moment in favor of a “song of praise to love.” She asked whether it could be a “late modern ballad”: “sophisticatedly done, a novel experiment.”
“A postmodern trash play!”
From the 2014 Bachmann Prize jury discussion
“At a time when 192,000 petitioners in the state of Baden-Württemberg are seriously demanding that the discourse on sexual diversity should not be reflected in education plans, Gericke’s historicizing and not always convincing approach takes on an oppressive topicality…”
“Im Spinnennetz der Utopie” (In the Spider’s Web of Utopia) by Elisabeth Maier on nachtkritik.de