Following their prize-winning success piece “Operette für zwei schwule Tenöre,” Johannes Kram and Florian Ludewig are teaming up once again. Under the working title “Woke,” a two-person musical is currently taking shape about an aging, gay musical star named Tony and a young person named Kim, who identifies as a “nonbinary lesbian.” The two are slated to play a romantic dream couple in a classic musical production in a provincial setting.
But “Woke” is more than a story about two people. The piece playfully and humorously dissects the musical genre, only to reassemble it as a love letter. The plot unfolds over one night in a hotel bar that is still closed, which also serves as the stage, the confessional, and the battlefield. In the depth of the night, generations, genders, and worldviews collide—a emotional laboratory experiment about identity, visibility, love, and the ability to truly listen to one another.
Author Johannes Kram explains: “We want to tell a story in which the LGBTQI+ community—and society at large—can recognize themselves, laugh at themselves, and, despite or precisely because of all the contradictions, find one another. A presumptuous, perhaps utopian approach—but that’s exactly what the musical is for.”
Composer Florian Ludewig adds: “Of course this isn’t a ‘woke’ piece—and we don’t claim the term as it’s used in the current discourse. But it hovers over many of the battles and misunderstandings that define our time. That’s precisely what we want to capture with our show.”
Funded by the Schachtsiek Family Foundation
“Woke” is the most extensive funding project of the Schachtsiek Family Foundation, founded three years ago and dedicated to the LGBTQI community and contemporary musical theater.
Foundation founder Bernd Schachtsiek emphasizes: “It was important for us to enable a project that conveys relevant themes for the LGBTQI community and can reach a broad audience. In the United States, contemporary musical theater is already part of the public discourse—we want to strengthen this potential in Germany as well.” He also notes that, here, it is hardly possible to develop a stage-ready, popular piece independently of commissioners or venues: “With this funding, we want to try new approaches.”
A central part of the funding was a multi-step development process that lets the creators test and optimize the piece repeatedly under professional conditions—and work closely with two performers who could also premiere the work.
Kreative Entwicklung mit Felix Martin und Mela Thurner
From the outset, German musical theater star Felix Martin has been closely involved. Kram says: “The exchange with him has helped me give depth to the contradictions of the character and, in addressing her less comfortable facets, really press the issue.” Johannes Kram adds: “Of course it would be amazing to premiere this piece with Felix Martin. Still, both we and Felix have deliberately kept it open, since we can’t yet gauge when and where it will be staged, whether we will produce it ourselves, and whether Felix will be available.”
Board member Jörg Litwinschuh-Barthel notes that the project will include educational materials for classroom use: “We want to give students a nuanced access to topics such as sexual and gender diversity, gender identities, and the heated debates around so-called wokeness. The goal is to raise awareness about discrimination and to create space for respectful discussion in the classroom.”
In October, Berlin hosted a workshop with a completed script and all 17 songs. In addition to Felix Martin as Tony, the role of the nonbinary Kim was taken by Mela Thurner, who—as Martin—belongs to the LGBTQI+ community. “Through the intensive work with Mela we learned a lot about the character and could sharpen her in crucial moments. The perspectives of both artists and their commitment to the material enormously enriched the development process,” says Johannes Kram.
Currently, Kram and Ludewig are working on the next version of the script, which will form the basis for the next—and for now final—development workshop in January 2026, again with Felix Martin and Mela Thurner. At its end, there should be a production-ready script version. (pm)
