Berner Bühnengespräche

She is a Swiss-American performer, author, comedian, and director. Since completing her master’s degree in acting at Zurich University of the Arts in 2012, she has been working as a freelance theater artist and collaborating with various groups and institutions. Her own theater works walk the fine line between humor and abyss, documentation and utopia, entertainment and conceptual art.
The private is political – just like laughing together in the theater when we really want to cry.

With her satirical music riot duo 9 Volt Nelly, she won the Olten Cabaret Casting in 2016 and has been touring Europe ever since. Their current show, “Bäng! Bäng! Bäng!”, takes ideas of femininity and the American dream to the point of absurdity. In their podcast “feminism by the pool”, they discuss difficult topics while wearing bikinis.

In 2021, she developed her first solo piece, «Mama Love», at Rote Fabrik factory theater, which she performed at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2022 as part of Pro Helvetia’s Swiss Selection and for which she received the City of Zurich Culture Award in 2023. The play forms the first part (nipples) of the trilogy «#carecity», which deals with the idea of a care-centered society: The second part (ripples) is the collaborative literature project #carecity _stories*, in which stories from the Care Revolution are told from different perspectives, spreading globally as an alternative, parallel reality.
The third part, «Dragon Love» (waves), is a political magic show and will premiere in May 2025.

Most recently, she co-directed the music theater project «Overprotected» with the inclusive ensemble of Theater HORA, which dealt with Britney Spears and the issue of guardianship and premiered in September 2025.

Meral Kureyshi, born in Prizren in 1983, came to Switzerland with her family in 1992 and lives in Bern. She studied literature and German language and literature and works as a freelance author. Her first novel, «Elefanten im Garten», was nominated for the Swiss Book Prize, has won several awards and has been translated into many languages. Her second novel, «Fünf Jahreszeiten», won the Marianne and Curt Dienemann Foundation’s «Das zweite Buch» literary prize for manuscripts. In 2020, she was invited to the German Literature Days in Klagenfurt (Bachmannpreis). In 2025, she received a literary prize from the Canton of Bern for «Im Meer waren wir nie».

Sibylle Heiniger (she/her) – Lives in Biel and works mainly in Bern.

Director, dramaturge, theatre educator, lecturer.

After graduating from high school, she obtained a diploma in social pedagogy HF. Formative years spent travelling with a theatre circus. The experience she gained there in team leadership, negotiating with various actors and in the artistic field determined her further career: CAS theatre education with a focus on directing and stage management at the Federal Academy for Cultural Education in Wolfenbüttel, Germany; studied theatre studies, sociology and contemporary art history at the University of Bern; diploma in adult education HF. Active in the independent theatre scene in Bern since the early 2000s. Her own projects often straddle the boundary between performance and installation and are oriented towards the interventionist practice of applied theatre.

Own formats: HEINIGER/FORRER production and muniambärg theatre group. Collaborations with figurentheater lupine, Patricia Nocon/Theater Oderwiese, among others; Project developments with so-called “experts of everyday life” in search of a form of visualisation through artistic work.

She is also a lecturer in applied theatre education and intercultural learning and has been co-president of t. Theaterschaffen Schweiz since 2025.