Claus Philipp

Claus Philipp, born in Wels in 1966, is a freelance dramaturg and journalist. Until 2008, he was the culture editor of the Austrian daily newspaper *Der Standard*, and from 2008 to 2017, he served as managing director of the Stadtkino Wien. He has published books on figures such as Christoph Schlingensief, Alexander Kluge, and Ulrich Seidl, among others. From 2017 to 2021, he was a lecturer in the scenography class at the Academy of Fine Arts under Anna Viebrock. 2017: Concept, dramaturgy, and artistic collaboration on the film and performance project “Die Kinder der Toten” as part of the “steirischer herbst” festival. The feature film by the Nature Theater of Oklahoma, completed in 2019, opened the Forum section of the Berlinale and was awarded the International Film Critics’ Prize there. In 2020, he served as concept developer and dramaturg for the 10-hour video project “Pestmarathon” (based on Albert Camus) for Vienna’s Rabenhof Theater and FM4, as well as on the film projects “Sargnagel” (directed by Sabine Hiebler and Gerhard Ertl) and “Mutzenbacher” (directed by Ruth Beckermann). Most recently, he collaborated with Milo Rau on “Die Wiener Prozesse” at the Vienna Festival.

Together with director Jan-Christoph Gockel, he created “Wer immer hofft, stirbt singend” (Whoever Hopes Dies Singing) at the Münchner Kammerspiele in 2020–21, a revue based on texts by Alexander Kluge, and in 2023–24, “Der Sturm: Das Dämmern der Welt” (The Tempest: The Twilight of the World) at the same venue, based on motifs by William Shakespeare and Werner Herzog. This was followed by “Oh Schreck!” in the 2024–25 season and “Wallenstein” in the 2025–26 season. For this work, he was named Dramaturg of the Year by “Theater heute,” alongside Viola Hasselberg.