Hello, I'm Philine Conrad, born and raised as Lisa Conrad in Cologne. In 2010 I joined an acting workshop at studiobühne cologne and discovered the theatre. One year later I finished my studies at the University of Cologne with a thesis about secret services, whistleblowers & Wikileaks. I went to Ecuador for 3 months. One day before leaving I sold my VW Beetle and send an application to the Berlin University of Arts. In Quito I joined another acting course in Spanish, lead by an Italian and participated in some trainings with the clinic clowns. An email arrived from the Berlin University of Arts: They required a monologue of Shakespeare for the audition. I started searching. After 2 hours I found what I was looking for in the Libri Mundi bookstore in the center of Quito: King Lear. And I started to study the Edmund. 6 days after my return to Germany I bought a one-way ticket, packed two travel bags, one with clothes, the other with important documents, and moved to Berlin. In 2014 I played at the Maxim Gorki Theatre in “Critical Mass” and in “Grenzfa(e)lle” at Heimathafen Neukölln. The piece “Vom Inneren der Farben” was performed in HAU (Hebbel am Ufer). I started painting in 2013 and writing in 2014. In July 2014 I moved to Cologne and started acting school. From 2015 to 2018 I worked at Theatre der Keller and at Comedia Theatre Cologne, played the role of Krabat in the piece “Krabat”. The play “White is not a color” was invited to Mülheimer Theatertage in 2018. In 2016 I presented some of my textes at the festival “The City of Tomorrow” at Schauspiel Köln. In 2017 I was first engaged by RheinEnergie and then by Deutsche Post with my paintings on power boxes. In 2018 I received the NRW Young Talent Scholarship and in 2019 my theatre piece

“Lulla-Bye for a mother” won the Northeast Literature Prize. In 2020 is was published, the radio station WDR produced my radio play “The Gift” and I received the NRW grant for freelance artists.

 

While I am writing these lines I almost forget the illness that had to be conquered for many years since 2008, and which I meanwhile no lnger believed to overcome, and the exhausting months of exclusion and rejection during my acting school. The theater was always my refuge where I feel safe and at home.

 

Today I am happy to be in peace with myself and my life, free and, above all, healthy.

 

I live and work in Cologne.