David Roesner

David Roesner holds a professorship in theater studies with a focus on music theater at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Munich. His research focuses on the musicalization of theater and the theatricalization of music, sound and performance, intermediality, and performativity and musicality in video games. He recently began leading the project “Theatrical Music Today as Cultural Practice.” Roesner believes that theater music is a kind of cultural technique that functions as a central motor of scenic dramaturgy and has become stylistically influential for the respective play form and performance aesthetic, among others in the directing works of Karin Beier/Jörg Gollasch, Michael Thalheimer/Bert Wrede or Frank Castorf/Sir Henry.
Roesner has been active in research and teaching at the universities of Hildesheim, Exeter, and Kent, and occasionally performs as a theater musician. He studied Cultural Studies and Aesthetic Practice at the University of Hildesheim and received his PhD on “Theater as Music.”