TBS & Partner: 175 years of Lucerne Theater
The Lucerne Theater is celebrating its 175th anniversary—and has planned a particularly dynamic season featuring various flagship projects. TBS & Partner is ensuring that this anniversary is prominently highlighted in the theater’s annual communications.
A bank, a department store or a hornussen club likes to take a sedate approach to an anniversary, looking back and feeling proud. But how should a cultural institution celebrate its 175th anniversary without a sense of sedateness that doesn't suit a theater that feels anchored in the here and now and values cultural traditions as a driver of critical social discourse? The theater management approached TBS & Partner with this task.
Singing, speaking, dancing...
The Lucerne Theater has long used a tried and tested rhetorical device: it often communicates its principles as a conceptual three-step. Its character as a three-part theater is shortened to the formula "sing, speak, dance". It summarizes its innovative approach to cultural heritage in the dictum "remember, discover, renew". In this context, TBS & Partner developed an anniversary presentation with a basic dialogical structure. The anniversary logo "...175 years of Lucerne Theater" used in the anniversary year is linked via three points to a statement typical of the theater, cast in three terms, which is developed from the respective context. The cover of the program booklet, for example, features the irritating and succinct headline "I you we...", which is linked with
The logo "...175 years of Lucerne theater" in the foot communicates the fact that theater always has a social discourse in mind, which contributes significantly to a common cultural identity.
A poster series for the anniversary makes familiar word formations productive by separating them and relates the new meaning to the theater ("Gedanken Spiel Raum...").
The play posters are also subordinate to this anniversary appearance and focus in their terminology on an essential aspect of the respective plot. For example, the dramatic plot of the musical "The Black Rider" is shortened to the apt short form "Kuss Schluss Schluss...").
Creativity in demand
Staging this concept across all media throughout the season is challenging. This is precisely the appeal of the anniversary presentation: every publication of the theater requires a small creative act in the anniversary year. This sets the Lucerne Theater apart from the stolidity of other jubilees, which simply add a number adorned with a laurel wreath to their logo...
Responsible at the Lucerne Theater: Dominique Mentha (Director), Patrizia Hort (Head of Communications and Media), Isabelle Koehler (Head of Sponsoring). Responsible at TBS & Partner: Michael Schädelin (concept), Daniel Leber (design), Marlen Gassler (consulting/project organization), Ramun Knapp, Daniel Erdin (web), Sacha Singh, Nadja Ermert (polygraphy).
