Dea Loher

Dea Loher (born 1964) is a German playwright and author.

Dea Loher was born Andrea Beate Loher in 1964 in Traunstein, Germany. She initially used the first name Dea as a pen name, but eventually changed her name officially to Dea. She studied German literature and philosophy at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. She then spent a year in Brazil. In 1990, she began studying creative writing for the stage with Heiner Müller and Yaak Karsunke at the Berlin University of the Arts. Her first plays premiered in the early 1990s, and she gained recognition as one of the most important young playwrights of her time in Germany. Dea Loher has since been awarded major prizes for drama and literature in Germany, including the Joseph-Breitbach-Preis.

Dramas

• Tätowierung (Premiere at the Ensemble Theater am Südstern, Berlin, 1992)
• Olgas Raum (Olga's Room) (Premiere at the Ernst Deutsch Theater, Hamburg, 1992)
• Leviathan (Premiere at the Niedersächsisches Staatstheater, Hanover, 1993)
• Fremdes Haus (Premiere at the Niedersächsisches Staatstheater, Hanover, 1995)
• Adam Geist (Premiere at the Niedersächsisches Staatstheater, Hanover, 1998)
• Blaubart - Hoffnung der Frauen (Premiere at the Bayerisches Staatsschauspiel München, Munich, 1997)
• Manhattan Medea (Premiere at steirischer herbst, 1999)
• Berliner Geschichte (Premiere at the Niedersächsisches Staatstheater, Hanover, 2000)
• Klaras Verhältnisse (Premiere at the Burgtheater, Vienna, 2000)
• Der dritte Sektor (Premiere at the Thalia Theater, Hamburg, 2001)
• Magazin des Glücks (Premiered at the Thalia Theater, Hamburg, 2001-2002)
• Unschuld (Premiere at the Thalia Theater, Hamburg, 2003)
• Das Leben auf der Praca Roosevelt (Premiere at the Thalia Theater, Hamburg, 2004)
• Quixote in der Stadt (Premiere at the Thalia Theater, Hamburg, 2005)
• Land ohne Worte (Premiere at the Münchner Kammerspiele, Munich, 2007)
• Das letzte Feuer (Premiere at the Thalia Theater, Hamburg, 2008)
• Diebe (Premiere at the Deutsches Theater, Berlin, 2010)
• Am Schwarzen See (Premiere at the Deutsches Theater, Berlin, 2012)

Libretto

• Licht. Opera. Music by Wolfgang Böhmer (Premiere at the Neuköllner Oper, Berlin, 2004)

Prose

• Hundskopf (Göttingen: Wallstein Verlag, 2005)
• Bugatti taucht auf (Göttingen: Wallstein Verlag, 2012)

• 1990 Playwrights Prize awarded by the Hamburger Volksbühne for Olgas Raum
• 1992 Royal Court Theatre Playwrights Award
• 1993 Stücke-Förderpreis awarded by the Goethe Institute (for Tätowierung in Friderike Vielstich's production at the Theater Oberhausen)
• 1993 Frankfurter Autorenstiftung Prize (Frankfurt Author Foundation)
• 1993 Chosen as "Nachwuchsdramatikerin des Jahres" (Young Playwright of the Year) by the German publication Theater heute
• 1994 Chosen as "Nachwuchsdramatikerin des Jahres" (Young Playwright of the Year) by the German publication Theater heute
• 1995 Schiller Memorial Prize
• 1997 Jakob-Michael-Reinhold-Lenz Prize for Drama (forAdam Geist)
• 1997 Gerrit-Engelke Prize
• 1998 Mülheimer Dramatikerpreis (for Adam Geist)
• 2005 Else Lasker Schüler Drama Prize
• 2006 Bertolt Brecht Literature Prize
• 2008 Mülheimer Dramatikerpreis (for Das letzte Feuer)
• 2008 Play of the Year for Das letzte Feuer by jury selection for the German publication Theater Heute
• 2009 Berlin Literature Prize
• 2009 Marieluise-Fleißer-Preis

Dea Loher's work has been the subject of scholarship, most notably in Birgit Haas' Das Theater von Dea Loher: Brecht und (k)ein Ende. Her works have been translated into French, English and Spanish.