“We didn’t want theatres to just tick a box – we want the process!”

And then it all worked out!

And then it all worked out, yes. I studied in Leipzig and enjoyed every lesson and every single day! Especially after studying philosophy – sitting in the library, reading books, writing essays – I thought, ‘Wow, this is the real life!’ Then I went to Vienna for a short while because I had a brilliant teacher there. And I would also have had the opportunity to do postgraduate study leading to the opera concert exam. I could have carried on studying forever – I really enjoyed it. But at some point I wanted to find out whether I could actually earn a living in this profession, so I decided against further study and the exam after all.

I went back to Germany, did some auditions and I think I was also very lucky, because I got a permanent engagement very quickly and embarked on a career on stage. I saw that as a great privilege, because I never took it for granted or assumed it was the only path for me and that it would definitely work out.

That’s why it’s only natural that I’ve now moved away from singing as a means of making a living.

Does your partner work for the stage too?

Yes, we actually met at the theatre. Back then he was mainly an opera director, but then he moved more into acting, and now he works at a theatre for children and young people.

Going back to what you were just saying: instead of carrying on studying forever, at some point you’ve got to start earning a living...

Yes. And the real learning – you can’t really imagine that whilst you’re at university; it happens on stage, it's a different kind of learning. I actually left my first permanent engagement as an opera singer of my own accord after two years because I felt I wasn’t learning enough there anymore. I actually wanted to learn other things and develop more quickly or in a different way.

^{Verena Usemann as Octavian in DER ROSENKAVALIER, Coburg State Theatre}

And then you had three children. And now you’re part of ‘Bühnenmütter’, an association for artists who’ve experienced just how difficult it is to balance a career in the arts with parenthood or family life. Because you’re not just focused on parents and young children, are you?

Absolutely. We now work much more with the concept of ‘care’, and advocate for everyone working in the arts and culture sector who also has care responsibilities. I think we’ve become much more open and inclusive, including in our membership: many aren’t mothers or parents – or aren’t yet – but are still engaged with the issue of care.

For example, looking after relatives.

Exactly. Our area has become increasingly broad, as has our target audience. We now have male members too. And we’re actively trying to move away from the image of being a ‘mums’ club’.

The Bundesverband Vereinigung (Federal Association for Work-Life Balance) has been around for some time now. I believe the word ‘children’ appears 200 times on their website. But there’s no mention at all of relatives in need of care – that area is ‘still to come’. Yes, but what does ‘still to come’ actually mean? You started out as Bühnenmütter (stage mothers), so naturally it made sense at first to talk about women with children.

Yes, that’s also drawn from our own personal experiences. But what’s also becoming apparent to us now in our Culture Care project is the feeling that the issue of care may well take centre stage in the coming years.

‘Bühnenmütter’: they aren’t just about musical theatre, but also drama.

Yes, our membership includes actors, visual artists, musicians, soloists, orchestral musicians, lead singers, authors…

So, basically everyone.

Yes, everyone. We’re also trying to set priorities through our digital conferences and specifically target other professional groups. Actors and singers may make up the majority, but it’s becoming increasingly diverse.

How many members do you currently have?

I think around 220.

Great.

And we now also have three theatres as members. We’d like to promote this further, because we’re currently spending a lot of time visiting theatre organisations, getting to grips with their structures, and are often invited to speak at staff meetings. There’s demand for this topic everywhere, and we’d like as many theatres as possible to become members and connect their staff with us. In return, we offer inspirational talks and training courses.

You have lots of members who work on a voluntary basis. And now you also have a few who are paid, for example, yourself.

That’s correct.

How many are there, and how did that come about? Surely these aren’t low pay jobs?

No. At the moment, we are ten powerful women on the board – a really great team, and all very committed to their roles on the board, still on a voluntary basis. In addition, there are many members who get involved on a project-by-project basis, for example by running workshops, speaking at events and representing us. And then, at the end of 2024, we struck gold: we applied for and were awarded an ESF grant – funding from the European Social Fund – for our Culture Care project.

This was a fairly logical development in our organisation’s history. We had, after all, been working for a long time on a catalogue of measures (Maßnahmenkatalog) titled ‘Recommendations for reconciling care responsibilities with artistic work in the theatre’. In it, we set out in concrete terms which measures we believed would make working conditions more care-friendly. We shared these proposals with the wider world and received a lot of positive feedback! Then the question arose: ‘This now needs to be put into practice. Who can do it?’

We would have preferred to do it ourselves. And whilst searching for funding, we came across the European Social Fund. I always say it was like catching a whale with a hand line! This type and level of funding simply didn’t exist in the cultural sector, where we’d usually been fishing. These are funds from the EU and the Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs (BMAS) – and strictly speaking, it’s a further training grant that supports in-company training across entire sectors.

That was actually exactly what we wanted. We had very ambitious plans and sought advice from various sources, and we immediately got the feeling that the funding body thought it was brilliant. Although, as a small association, we did wonder: how can we possibly apply for millions here? Because the ESF tends not to accept applications for amounts under €800,000.

However, we received a great deal of support and encouragement there, and developed the Culture Care project in consultation with them. They were also enthusiastic because, as they told us, no one from the cultural sector had ever applied to them before to set up a structured further training programme. Nobody was aware of this funding either; it wasn’t something that had been publicised in the usual cultural newsletters.

And now everyone knows about it!
Just to clarify: ‘further education’ means that you are training theatres.

Exactly. And since you asked about paid staff: thanks to this funding, we now have permanent staff. In the first round of funding, there were six of us – two full-time and four part-time roles. Since September 2026, we’ve been receiving a further grant, so we’re bringing new theatres on board and, in a way, rolling out the process in the new federal states.

So, as of 1 September 2026, we have a total of eleven permanent staff members. That’s a huge leap forward for us! We now have an office, an art director, an accounts department and greater visibility – which, of course, also benefits the our association, the Bühnenmütter.

And we’re becoming more professional – or rather, we have to become more professional. We’re learning an absolute load simply by doing it. We still don’t have an office for the association, just our project office. But of course we can also do things for the association from there.

In February 2024, the advice and information portal ‘Familienfreundliches Drehen’ (ffd PQF - German only) went online – a resource that was somewhat wasted because nothing came of it.
You chose a different approach: rather than sending your action plan out as a mass email, you went to the theatres to speak to those in charge in person.

Exactly. We’d decided to channel our ‘women’s power’ into directly supporting these processes. That’s why we also scrapped our original ‘family seal’ idea, because we didn’t want the businesses to just tick boxes, tick off tasks and hang a gold plaque above the door – we want the process itself! And the process is a labour of love. You can’t just change a structure or a mindset overnight – not even in three years.

But we feel that all the discussions we’re having in the theatres are incredibly valuable – ‘Talking helps’ has become something of a catchphrase in our project! In the first year, we carried out a very detailed analysis of the current situation, conducted structured interviews in the theatres on the topic of ‘How is work-life balance practised here?’, and asked: ‘What ideas do you have? How do you perceive your managers’ attitude? What is the atmosphere amongst colleagues regarding this? What would you like to see?’

We spent a good hour talking to people in each of the theatres, which the interviewees really appreciated; that alone was an eye-opener and served as a form of awareness-raising in its own right. Afterwards, we fed the results back to the theatres and discussed them with the managing directors. From this, we devised individual measures for the theatres, which are now being implemented.

These are all small steps that emerge from constantly discussing and questioning the issues. Not to mention the structural changes we’re trying to put in place – agreements, childcare…

Have these “guided interviews” only taken place at the seven pilot theatres so far?

Exactly, as part of our analysis of the current situation. The interviews were an absolutely brilliant idea and, as well as providing insights, were great fun.

And we received feedback from the theatres that, through the interviews, we’d captured a great many fundamental issues and sentiments, and got to know the organisations very well. We also identified the interconnections: in which departments is work-life balance working well? Why is that the case? What’s the role of communication?

This, of course, is fundamental organisational development that we came across. We examined everything through our ‘stage mums’ perspective. We’re placed in a position of great trust because we come from the performing arts – in other words, we’re directly affected. We know the processes and the pain points; we know what a daily schedule looks like and how things change.