Ursina Greuel was born in 1971. After starting to study theatre and Spanish at the Humboldt University in Berlin and internships and assistant roles at various theatres in the 1990s, she studied acting and directing at the Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK). She then worked as a director’s assistant and later as a director at the Thalia Theater in Hamburg. Since 2000, she has been a freelance director, founding Matterhorn Produktionen in 2001 together with Guy Krneta. She has also been Artistic Director of the sogar theater in Zurich since 2018. A dedicated theatrical creator, she has founded a number of promotional vehicles. She was Co-Director of the drama series Antischublade in Basel from 1999 to 2004 and of the New Drama workshop series at the Vorstadt-Theater in Basel from 2004 to 2008. In 2014, she created STÜCKBOX, a production platform for contemporary playwrights that embeds dialogue with the audience in the artistic process from outset. From 2006 to 2015, she chaired the Swiss association of freelance theatre professionals ACT (now t.Theaterschaffen Schweiz).
Ursina Greuel’s work as a director deals with new texts and the musicality of language. She has sought close collaboration with authors throughout her career and directed performances (in some cases premieres) of pieces by Renata Burckhardt, Martina Clavadetscher, Lukas Holliger, Guy Krneta, Melinda Nadj Abonji, Beat Sterchi and others. Her work become more politicised following the mass migration initiative of 2012: the Swiss asylum system; the fate of first-, second- and third-generation migrants; the social acceptability of right-wing populism and its intermingling with the extreme Right ‒ Ursina Greuel derived an artistic form from each topic. She succeeded in translating the subject matter into a polished, sensuous and often musical language, never more so than in Mensch, du hast Recht! (2023), an evening in four languages in which a diverse nine-person ensemble breathes life into all 30 articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Ursina Greuel is a mother of four and lives in Basel and Zurich.
Ursina Greuel is an incisive observer of our society. Her work attests to a tireless commitment to the niches, flipsides and blind spots of art, politics and life in general. Be it New Drama, linguistic diversity, social justice or inclusion, as a theatre director and hostess, a curator, a director or a promoter of literature, she gives voices a stage. In times when stoking outrage is the norm, Ursina Greuel offers something more intelligent. She steers our focus with a flair for collaboration and precision: sometimes where it hurts, but also where happiness waits around the corner. Like an ambassador without borders, she always wants something, and that is exactly what makes her work so engaging.
