Maike Schuster (born 1995 on Sylt) is a freelance director and play director at the Hamburg State Opera. She works regularly at the Hamburg Theatre Academy, with the Consart ensemble and the artists’ collective “operationderkuenste”. Most recently she staged Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro with “operationderkuenste”. The performances had to be postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic – as well as a production of a shortened version of Bizet’s Carmen as part of the Bergedorf Music Festival 2020. Instead, she developed an online opera entitled Mindfuck.Coronopera about spacial distancing and social empathy.

IDA, Earth Heroine. Eine Klimaoperette vom Ausgang des Menschen aus seiner selbstverschuldeten Untätigkeit was her first self-written music-theatrical work (music by Laura Livers, Friedemann Hasse and Steven Tanoto) and was performed at the Theater in der Marzipanfabrik in Hamburg in December 2019.

Previous works include Mozart’s Magic Flute (operationderkuenste, UdK Berlin and HfMDK Frankfurt), three children’s singing plays at Herrenbreitungen Castle with the Ensemble Consart, excerpts from Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo staged with the chamber choir of the Mönchseegymnasium Heilbronn as part of the Kultursommer am Kanal, which was performed in the reading room of the Warburg-Haus, and various world premieres by contemporary composers (including Friedemann Hasse, Laura Livers, Thies Mynther, Philipp Rohmer, Aigerim Seilova, Steven Tanoto, Shiwen Wang and Dong Zhou). Friedemann Hasse, Laura Livers, Thies Mynther, Philipp Rohmer, Aigerim Seilova, Steven Tanoto, Shiwen Wang and Dong Zhou). She assisted in productions at opera stabile at the Hamburg State Opera (I.th.Ak. A, Ring und Wrestling, Die Nacht der Seeigel, Die beiden Fiedler) as well as in study projects at the Hamburg Theatre Academy (Curlew River, wagner sucht, Das Tagebuch der Anne Frank) and free projects, for example in the Tiefbunker under Hamburg’s main railway station under the direction of Sebastian Richter (The Minotaur Peacekeeping Company) or as part of the Kultursommer am Kanal (Der Freischütz) and completed guest directorships at the Hamburg State Opera (La Belle Hélène and Die tote Stadt).

She also staged a version of Bizet’s Carmen for three singers and an actress with a world premiere by composer Steven Tanoto, John Cage’s Song Books, Wagner’s Wesendonck-Lieder together with her fellow students and, as part of the Theater der Welt Festival in Hamburg, she participated in the installation Hafen/Arbeit in the Festvalzentrum; in addition, Suche in the Rudolf Steiner Haus and INSIGHT in the TheaterQuartier, both master’s degrees in composition. Maike Schuster is currently studying directing music theatre at the Hamburg University of Music and Theatre and historical musicology and German language and literature at the University of Hamburg. Furthermore, she is engaged in various dance styles (Tango Argentino, Flamenco, Contemporary, improvisation techniques), trains her young horse and explores different collective working methods and the potentials of music theatre for the 21st century.