© Beck Nikolaus Habjan

Nikolaus Habjan

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Vita

Born in Graz, Nikolaus Habjan studied musical theater directing at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna. He gained experience with puppet theatre at the age of 15 and perfected his puppetry technique through the Australian artist Neville Tranter. He has directed and performed at the Theater an der Wien, the Vienna Chamber Opera and the Bayreuth Festival, among others, and is resident director at Theater Dortmund from 2020/2021 to 2023/2024. He plays the Shakespeare puppet he designed in Fool of Love at the Burgtheater Vienna and the character of Elfriede in Jelinek's play Schatten (Eurydike sagt) at the Akademietheater. He has been a regular guest at Schauspielhaus Graz since 2014 with the puppet theater solo F. Zawrel - erbbiologisch und sozial minderwertig (director: Simon Meusberger), which was awarded the Nestroy Prize for Best Off-Production in 2012. In 2017/2018, he worked on the world premiere of Böhm by Paulus Hochgatterer – nominated for the Nestroy Theater Prize 2018 as Best Provincial Production, which has already had more than 60 performances in Graz and elsewhere. In 2019/2020, The Hills Are Alive was created as a collaboration between Nikolaus Habjan and Neville Tranter, and in 2020/2021 Ich pfeife auf die Oper (I don't give a damn about opera), in which Habjan appears on stage as an artistic piper.