Markus Kupferblum
Senior Lecturer for Drama, Drama Ensemble
kupferblum@mdw.ac.at

Markus Kupferblum was born in Vienna in 1964 and studied at the University of Music and Performing Arts (acting) and the University of Vienna (philosophy, sociology and law). He received further training  in Paris at the clown school École Philippe Gaulier / Monika Pagneux (Jacques Lecoq), at New York University (film) and at the STSI School Bali (mask theatre). He worked as an assistant to Antoine Vitez, Achim Freyer and Verena Weiss at the Vienna State Opera, the Teatro La Fenice in Venice and the Opèra de la Bastille in Paris.

Since 1987, he has directed the Totale Theater Wien-Paris, which he founded, and is co-founder of the Scattola Sonora festival in Turin and the clown group Out of Sync in London. In 2013, he founded the musical theatre group Schlüterwerke in Vienna. Since 1988, he has been internationally active as a director of spoken theatre, musical theatre, mask theatre, performances, artistic actions, street theatre and all mixed forms of theatre – for which he is often also responsible as an author, arranger or translator. In addition to the theatre centres of his native Austria, Israel, Russia, Iran, Peru, New York and London are regularly on his agenda. His most successful productions include I Pagliacci by Ruggiero Leoncavallo (Salle de Bal, Vienna 1993), Peer Gynt (Paris, Festival d'Avignon 1992), Les Moustaches de la Reine (Tenerife, Paris, Brussels, Vienna; 1st Prix de l'Humour at the Festival of Avignon 1993, over 200 performances in six different countries), La Traviata by Giuseppe Verdi (Totales Theater Vienna 1994), world premieres by Olga Neuwirth and Elfriede Jelinek (Berlin 1997), Don Pasquale by Gaetano Donizetti and the German premiere of Kurt Weill's musical One Touch of Venus at the Freiburg Opera (1997/98), Das Weisse Rössl at the Dortmund Opera (2008), Sigmunds Traum (Satyri Theatre, St. Petersburg 2003), Vor dem Gesetz (2009) at the Vienna Palace of Justice and Antwort auf einen ungeschriebenen Brief (Akko Festival, Israel and Vienna 2010). He repeatedly appears successfully on stage as a clown. For his play Die verlassene Dido at the Theater im Nestroyhof in Vienna, he was awarded the Nestroy Prize for the best off-production in 2007. Other important productions include Der Kaiser von Atlantis by Viktor Ullmann (New York), Winterreise by Franz Schubert/Franz Liszt/Wilhelm Müller/Miklos Rádnoty (Vienna), Pariser Leben by Jacques Offenbach (Bad Ischl), Clo-Clo by Franz Lehár (Bad Ischl) – for which he won the Bavarian Radio's Operetten Frosch award – as well as Weltuntergang by Jura Soyfer (Komödienspiele Porcia) and a lyrical short film series (YouTube).

Markus Kupferblum teaches at the Université de la Sorbonne (Paris), the Hebrew University and the Jerusalem Film School (Jerusalem), the University of London (England), South Eastern Louisiana University (USA), the University of Michigan (USA), Harvard University (USA), Yale University (USA) and Columbia University (USA), the Bavarian Theatre Academy August Everding, the University of Vienna, and in master classes in Vienna, Linz, Lithuania, Korea and Canada. From 2007 to 2011, he held a teaching position for directing and physical role design at the Max Reinhardt Seminar in Vienna. He teaches at the Bavarian Theatre Academy August Everding, the State University in Stuttgart and in Frankfurt am Main. He has been teaching students musical drama performance at the Department of Voice and Musical Theatre since 2016.

kupferblum.com

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)-04.02.2026