Mareike Zimmermann

Mareike Zimmermann is a director, lecturer and intimacy coordinator.
After studying in Cologne and Rome, she initially worked as an assistant at the Musiktheater im Revier in Gelsenkirchen and at the Opéra du Rhin in Strasbourg, before spending several years as a stage director at the Pfalztheater Kaiserslautern. Mareike Zimmermann made her debut as a director there with Schönberg's “Pierrot Lunaire”. This was followed by L. Janáček's “The Makropulos Case”, G. Donizetti's “Don Pasquale” and J. Strauss' “A Night in Venice”, among others. Since 2010, Mareike Zimmermann has been working as a freelance director for opera and theatre in Salzburg, Wiesbaden, Regensburg, Erfurt, Meiningen, Münster and Innsbruck, among other places.
She is passionately committed to the stage training of young singers: She stages opera projects at universities and has worked with opera students at the Kammeroper Schloss Rheinsberg and the Baden-Baden Festival. Since 2018, she has been a lecturer in stage performance/musical theatre at the Folkwang University of the Arts in Essen, since 2023 at the Tyrolean State Conservatory and since 2025 at the HfMT Cologne. She gives international workshops, for example at the Royal Conservatoire Antwerp.
Since 2025, Mareike Zimmermann has been a certified intimacy coordinator for live performance; she supports opera houses, theatres and university classes in workshops and rehearsals in intimacy-sensitive work and with choreography for intimate scenes.