Award ceremony

Grand gala for the jubilee Nestroys!

Julia Edtmeier from Linz is delighted with the Nestroy.

(Bild: APA/GEORG HOCHMUTH)

For the 25th time, the Austrian Theater Awards were presented at a grand gala in Vienna's Volkstheater: Julia Edtmeier from Linz and the German Claudius von Stolzmann were honored in the category "Best Actor", the Tyrolean playwright Felix Mitterer was honored for his life's work.

It is now a quarter of a century old - Austria's Nestroy Theater Prize, which was awarded yesterday evening at the Volkstheater in Vienna in a total of 14 categories.

Julia Edtmeier and Claudius von Stolzmann were the winners in the top category "Best Actress": The 34-year-old from Linz - known to a wide cinema audience as Gitti Hillmaier from the Stipsits blockbuster "Love Machine" - won over the jury as Mozart "Amadeus", a co-production of the Volkstheater in den Bezirken and Bronski & Grünberg. She was able to prevail against her colleagues Birgit Minichmayr, Paulina Alpen, Bettina Lieder and Anna Rieser.

Best actor: Claudius von Stolzmann as Zagl in "Der Himbeerpflücker" (Kammerspiele)

(Bild: APA/GEORG HOCHMUTH)

The 43-year-old German Claudius von Stolzmann was honored for his role as the psychopathic house servant Zagl in Fritz Hochwälder's comedy of mistaken identity "Der Himbeerpflücker" at the Wiener Kammerspiele, beating out the other nominees Simon Kirsch, Roland Koch and Michael Maertens, Maximilien Thienen and Mervan Ürkmez.

The 2024 Nestroy Award winners

• Best actress: Julia Edtmeier as Mozart in "Amadeus" (Volkstheater i. d. B./Bronski & Grünberg)
• Best actor: Claudius von Stolzmann as Zagl in "Der Himbeerpflücker" (Kammerspiele)
• Best supporting role: Christoph Luser as Guter Gesell/Teufel in "Jedermann" (Salzburg Festival)
• Best Director: Kornél Mundruczó for "Parallax" (Wiener Festwochen)
• Best young actor: Irem Gökçen as Clarice in "The Servant of Two Masters" (Volkstheater)
• Best Young Author: Leonie Lorena Wyss for "Muttertier" (Vestibül)
• Best set: Victoria Behr (costumes) and Pia Maria Mackert (stage) for Franz Kafka's "The Metamorphosis" (Akademietheater)
• Special Prize: "Oskar Werner - Uncompromising Rebirth" (Theater Odeon)
• Best Off-Production: "Nestbeschmutzung" by the Institute for Media, Politics & Theater (Kosmos Theater)
• Best provincial performance: "Von einem Frauenzimmer" (Schauspielhaus Graz)
• Best performance in a German-speaking country: "Anthropolis I-V" by Roland Schimmelpfennig, directed by Karin Beier (Deutsches Schauspielhaus Hamburg)
• Best play - author prize: Magdalena Schrefel with Valentin Schuster for "Die vielen Stimmen meines Bruders" (Kosmos Theater)
• Lifetime achievement: Felix Mitterer
• ORF III Audience Award: "Conchita" Tom Neuwirth for his portrayal of Archduke Ludwig Viktor in the play "Luziwuzi" at Vienna's Rabenhof Theater

Hungarian director Kornél Mundruczó won the prize for best directorial work for the world premiere of the play "Parallax" at the Vienna Festival. Beforehand, presenter Peter Fässlacher joked: "Without a director, where would we be? Maybe sold out every night!" - much to the amusement of the professional audience.

Best director: Kornél Mundruczó for "Parallax" (Wiener Festwochen)

(Bild: APA/GEORG HOCHMUTH)

Christoph Luser from Graz won the prize in the category "Best Performance of a Supporting Role" for his double role as the Good Companion and the Devil in Hofmannsthal's "Jedermann" at the Salzburg Festival - and was able to prevail over his colleague Dörte Lyssewski, among others. In his acceptance speech, he emphatically emphasized with regard to the restrictions on culture in Slovakia and Hungary: "It is a privilege that we are allowed to say what we want here!". 

Honored for his life's work: The Tyrolean Felix Mitterer

(Bild: APA/GEORG HOCHMUTH)

The laudatory speech for Felix Mitterer

Dear Felix,

I'm standing here now instead of Gregor Bloeb, who has unfortunately fallen ill. That's the way it is in the theater sometimes.

I am very happy that I am able to give you a speech during your lifetime. Such a nice prize for your life's work. How good that you are with us. You Felix Mitterer!

You author of countless audience successes, also here at this theater, you have met the taste, the desire of the audience, never pleasing, but always holding up a mirror with humor, you have shot all the bucks. Not least because of your faith and trust in truth and authenticity.

You Felix, born as the 13th child in poor circumstances in Achenkirch on Lake Achensee. Your mother couldn't afford you and gave you up for adoption. You were then handed over at the Hotel Toleranz in Jenbach, a traffic junction between east and west, but also to the mountains, north and south, at the still-smoking coach houses of the Zillertal and Achensee railroads.

I grew up and went to school in Kirchberg and Kitzbühel, which was certainly a different place back then... Then Innsbruck, you left school and went as far as Rotterdam. Then you were a customs officer for years, also a traffic junction with many insights and assessments of the general traffic situation between East and West and South and North. You started writing for this and that and won an ORF television competition, my God, back then there were still ORF television competitions for authors and filmmakers, actually a good idea. .

. . . because winning this TV competition, "Shooting" was the name of the project, made it possible for you to become an independent author and actor. A short fire as a fiery Schiele in a film or all your passion in the theater. Again and again, out of the deepest joy or sometimes simply out of necessity, you acted over 300 times in your play "Kein Platz für Idioten", which your subsequent future publisher Kitty Stanek from Kaiserverlag Vienna saw at the Tiroler Volksbühne Blaas. She made a special trip there. From Vienna, that is. From the East to the West.

Countless successes, often wildly discussed, controversial. But always well attended and often stormed by the audience. In Hall at Hasegg Castle, you performed the 7 deadly sins as a moritat singer with your friends Curt Weinzierl, Ruth Drexel, Walter Reyer, Julia Gschnitzer, Dietmar Schönherr, Hans Brenner, Otto Grünmandl, Klaus Rohrmoser, Krista Posch, Markus Völlenklee, Bert Breit and many more. It was an incredible success.

The next year you wanted to perform your play Stigma full of zest for action. The town of Hall was against it. Then you all went to Telfs, where you founded the Tiroler Volksschauspiele.

Your play Kein schöner Land was performed here at the Volkstheater. I was allowed to play the son of the Jewish visionary of the cable car and tourism industry.

My first encounter with you. Always at eye level. Never from above. A listener and enabler. Free in his art.

Then the Piefke saga. Incidentally, the impetus came from two Piefkes. You didn't actually know what they wanted from you at first. But your vision got an entire country talking.

You left your home country - for Ireland. With Anna and Chryseldis, but at some point you realized in your favourite pub that you were losing the German language, the language you write in and the language you want to think in. And in the pub, far beyond the traffic junction of Jenbach, you're shot. You have to go back.

Your stops with your wife Agnes via Ravelsbach, Kaltern, Schwaz to Rohrbach an der Lafnitz. Always on the road in search of new happiness, longing for encounters and exchange.

This longing for exchange also brought you to the STEUDLTENN in the Zillertal. Meetings from east to west. You were our very first evening event as part of the theater festival. "Please come and read!" I begged. Actually, you didn't want to. But you came and won everyone's hearts in no time at all with your openness and authenticity. It was a great evening.

Dear Felix,

you gave so many people courage.

Courage that we all need.

To follow a path,

that makes humanity possible,

and with respect and tolerance,

without reservations

to the other person.

I bow before you

And I am delighted that this life's work has been accepted by you.

Thank you, Felix, for always being there for us.

Congratulations

Hakon Hirzenberger

The Tyrolean author Felix Mitterer, who was awarded the "Lifetime Achievement" Nestroy, was greeted with a long standing ovation. The touching laudatory speech (see above) was given by the artistic director of the "Steudltenn" theater festival, Hakon Hirzenberger. The ORF III Audience Award, presented by ZIB lady Nadja Bernhard and culture man Peter Fässlacher, went to "Conchita" Tom Neuwirth for his portrayal of Archduke Ludwig Viktor in the play "Luziwuzi" at Vienna's Rabenhof Theater.

There was a very special Nestroy at the end: a miniature one for the shortest acceptance speech. Karin Beier won it for her really succinct words after the Nestroy for the best performance in the German-speaking world ("Anthropolis I-V", Deutsches Schauspielhaus Hamburg). Conclusion: A thoroughly humorous Nestroy, but one that would benefit from a sharpening of the cabbage-and-turnip categories.