Yana Eva Thönnes (GER)

studied theater directing at the HfMT Hamburg and co-founded and directed the performance group THE AGENCY together with Magdalena Emmerig, Rahel Spöhrer and Belle Santos.
The group disbanded in 2022 and since then Yana Thönnes has been working as a playwright and director: her production of “Spitzenreiterinnen”, based on the novel of the same name by Jovana Reisinger, is in repertoire at the Residenztheater in Munich. Her play “In Memory Of Doris Bither” opened the 2023/24 season at the Schaubühne Berlin, was shortlisted for the Theatertreffen 2024 and was invited to the Heidelberger Stückemarkt 2024. In 2024, she and her team discovered the story “Dunkler Frühling” by surrealist Unica Zürn for the stage and staged their own version of the story at Theater Neumarkt Zürich.

Her extensive artistic research has taken her to Tokyo several times as a scholarship holder of the Saison Foundation, to Bangalore as a Goethe resident and on research trips to the USA and Los Angeles. Since 2018, Yana Thönnes has taught at various art academies such as the HfG Offenbach, the UdK Berlin, the ZHdK, the AdBK Nuremberg, the AdBK Munich and the HfMT Hamburg.