VON WEGEN. Margrit Wischnewski

In the organizer's words:

The exhibition on the life and work of the well-known puppet theater artist and puppeteer Margrit Wischnewski has been on display since February 17, 2025. It was curated by the Historische Verein Schwerin e.V. and designed by the trained stage designer, art teacher and puppet theater icon.

Historical hand puppets and large marionettes from Margrit Wischnewski's productions of fairy tales for adults and children or classic plays such as "Faust" are interwoven into a large production of her puppet theater history. Everything in the exhibition is handmade, from the framed collages, the hand and rod puppets, the props and stage sets to the so-called playbooks, large books with fold-out stage sets for the individual scenes of a fairy tale. Memories of their companions in the theater round off the exhibition of an important part of the history of puppet theater. The exhibition is an invitation to discover. An endless number of unique exhibits await visitors at the Schleswig-Holstein-Haus in Schwerin until March 23, 2024.

Whether well-known fairy tales or Goethe's Faust: Margrit Wischnewski has brought more than 70 different productions for children and adults to the stage of the puppet theater during her time at the Mecklenburg State Theater. With her expressive characters and the carefully and richly detailed stage sets, she fascinated audiences with her performances. And when the theater became too small for her, she moved to the city. "Puppen im Park", the puppet theater festival in Schwerin's castle gardens with actors from all over Germany, delighted thousands. She performed in schools and kindergartens, in the Schwerin-Mueß open-air museum and in the Mueß "Kinningshus".

Margrit Wischnewski, born in Bad Langensalza in 1948, worked as a secondary school teacher for art education and German for several years after studying education. She sewed puppets with her pupils and founded an amateur theater. Eduard Fischer, the theater sculptor of the Berliner Ensemble, provided her with a workshop space for two years. During this time, her decision to devote herself entirely to theater work grew.

After joining the Association of Visual Artists in 1979, she worked as a freelance set designer for GDR television and as a puppet designer, set designer, director and stage designer at various puppet theaters, e.g. in Frankfurt/Oder, Berlin, Naumburg, Neubrandenburg and at the Volkstheater Rostock as artistic director of the puppet theater. In the 1980s, she ran her own puppet theater in Berlin, the "Engel-Theater". In the early 1990s, she had her first contact with Schwerin, followed by guest contracts at the Mecklenburg State Theater from 1995.