Irene Christ
Biography
Irene is a German actress, director and lecturer, who has worked in various prestigious theatres such as Schauspielhaus Bochum, Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus and Volksbühne Berlin, and in New York with Oscar-nominated director Josh Fox. In 2002 she founded, together with her husband, the Maltese journalist Julian Manduca († 2005), the theatre company Actinghouse Productions in Malta. Until 2009 she produced and played in The Lady from the Sea (Ibsen), Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (Albee), Fat Men in Skirts (Silver); Amphitryon (Kleist), On the Seduction of Angels (Brecht / Weill), A Streetcar Named Desire (Williams) and many others.
She directed Tattoo by Dea Loher and Tchekhov’s Vaudevilles, which were part of the Malta International Arts Festival in 2008. Irene has been teaching drama at Masquerade and at the Drama Centre and works as a guest lecturer at one of the top German Academies of Dramatic Arts, Hochschule für Schauspielkunst ‘Ernst Busch’ in Berlin. Since 2009, she has been working mainly in Germany at the Staatstheater Kassel (acting, writing, directing) and Altes Schauspielhaus Stuttgart amongst others. She currently acts and directs at the Schlosspark Theatre Berlin. She founded a theatre group of psychiatric patients, the ‘Psycho Comedians‘. She played major roles in Maltese feature and short movies such as Do Re Mi Fa (Chris Zarb), Limestone Cowboy (Abigail Mallia), Camilla (Stefanie Sant), all of which featured successfully at international film festivals, and roles on German TV and for the BBC. In 2019 she collaborated with Teatru Malta and the Malta International Arts Festival for the stage version of Pope Joan, the story of a female pope in medieval times. Irene lives in Berlin and in Valletta.