Jette Steckel, born in Berlin in 1982, studied theatre directing at the Hamburg Theatre Academy from 2003 to 2007 and attended the Russian Theatre Academy GITIS in Moscow as a guest student. For her production of Nachtblind by Darja Stocker, she was named Young Director of the Year 2007 by the magazine *Theater heute*, and the play was invited to numerous festivals. For Gerettet by Edward Bond, she was awarded the Eysoldt Prize for young directors and invited to the Radikal jung festival in Munich. In 2008, Jette Steckel was nominated for the Austrian theatre prize NESTROY in the ‘Best Newcomer’ category.

From 2009 to 2013 and again since 2019, she has been resident director at the Thalia Theatre in Hamburg; her production there of The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare was awarded the German Theatre Prize DER FAUST. In addition to her work at the Schauspiel Köln, Jette Steckel has also directed at the Burgtheater in Vienna and in opera. She has also been directing regularly at the Deutsches Theater in Berlin since 2008. In spring 2017, Jette Steckel won the Hamburg Theatre Prize – Rolf Mares for Das achte Leben (For Brilka), the epic spanning a century by the author Nino Haratischwili.

Her productions Die Vaterlosen (2023) and Mephisto (2025) at the Münchner Kammerspiele have been and will be invited to the Berliner Theatertreffen.