Hochschule für Musik, Theater und Medien Hannover

Born in Bonn and raised in Moscow, Mascha Pörzgen completed her training in film and theater acting in Berlin. She then studied acting direction at the University of Hamburg under Manfred Brauneck and Jürgen Flimm, graduating with honors. She was assistant director at the Burgtheater in Vienna under Claus Peymann, George Tabori, and others. As a dramaturge and assistant director, she accompanied Werner Schroeter, Joachim Herz, and Johannes Schaaf to the Frankfurt Opera, the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow, and the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg. Since 1999, she has been a freelance director in spoken and musical theater.

Mascha Pörzgen's theater work encompasses experimental, contemporary, and classical repertoire, including Verdi's “I Vespri Siciliani” and “Rigoletto,” Tchaikovsky's “Eugene Onegin,” Janáček's “Katya Kabanova,” Nicolai's “The Merry Wives of Windsor,” Mozart's “The Magic Flute” and “Cosí fan tutte,” Donizetti's “Lucia di Lammermoor,” Gounod's “Marguerite,” Richard Strauss' “Der Rosenkavalier,” Ligeti's “Le Grand Macabre,” H.-J. v. Bose's “63:Dreampalace,” Dinescu's “Eréndira,” Schlees' church opera “Ich, Hiob” and “Die Grille” by Richard Ayres, Victor Ullmann's “Der Kaiser von Atlantis,” Ernst Krenek's “Tarquin,” Manfred Trojahn's “Limonen aus Sizilien,” Philip Glass's Beauty and the Beast.

At the Hanover University of Music, Drama und Media (HMTMH), she staged W.A. Mozart's Cosi fan tutte, Le nozze de Figaro, P. Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin, Ana Sokolović's Svadba (Wedding), Arnold Schönberg's “Pierrot Lunaire,” and the world premiere of “AI-Cina's Archive” (by and with students of the HMTMH).

In Drama-theater, she has staged works by Euripides, Shakespeare, Heiner Müller, Gombrowicz, Rasumovskaja, Robert Thomas, Peter Shaffer, as well as Musicals such as “The Little Shop of Horrors” and “Triumph of Love” (based on Marivaux). Her directing work has taken her to Vienna, Dresden, Berlin, Braunschweig, Krefeld/Mönchengladbach, Lübeck, Aachen, Oldenburg, Innsbruck, and Salzburg, among other places.

As resident director/acting coach/artistic supervisor, she accompanied BB-Promotion from 2007 to 2014 on the International World Tour of the original Broadway classic West Side Story (Vienna, Paris, Zurich, London, Athens, Madrid, Tokyo, Tel Aviv, etc.) and Richard O'Brian's “Rocky Horror Show” Tour 2011/12.

From 2011 to 2022, she taught stage performance and provided language and scene coaching for singers at the International Opera Studio of the Berlin State Opera and from 2020-22 the Opera Studio NRW. From 2007 to 2015, she was a lecturer for stage coaching (musical theater) at the Folkwang University of the Arts in Essen, held a visiting professorship in 2011 and teaching assignments at the Berlin University of the Arts in 2012/13, and directed at the Mozarteum University in Salzburg in the summer semester of 2015.

Since October 1, 2020, Mascha Pörzgen has been a professor of dialogue direction and scenic instruction at the Hanover University of Music, Drama and Media. She had been administering this professorship since the winter semester of 2015/16.