Live on stage: pachyderms and helicopters
21.03.2023 – The Capitol Theater in Offenbach celebrates its 25th birthday on October 21, 2023 - until then, the theater team will be highlighting one aspect of the unique event location every month around the 21st. March is all about the extraordinary and spectacular on stage - from enchanted elephants and flying tables to hidden sports cars.
Hans Klok has been one of the "greatest magicians in the world" since the NBC show of the same name in 1996 - but in May 2000, his magic powers were not up to scratch at the Capitol Theater. The Dutchman wanted to make a full-grown elephant disappear from the stage. "However, the animal's fat rump was still clearly visible when the curtain went up," recalls Capitol Managing Director Birgit von Hellborn. "Media from all over Germany were represented at the show at the time - and unfortunately this act didn't work at all." Klok then made his big appearance in the Rhine-Main region a few months later in the Jahrhunderthalle. The old theater wisdom seemed to apply to his rehearsal week and final show in Offenbach: The worse the dress rehearsal, the better the show.
In contrast, the 2006 Tischlein-deck-dich premiere with a flying buffet at Stadtwerke Offenbach's event venue was nothing short of magical: Rosenthal provided the Capitol team with all the crockery and glassware for the spectacular presentation. "Guests from potential agencies and catering companies were among those sitting in the hall," reports the Managing Director. Nobody knew what would happen when the curtain went up... then the fully set table, including cutlery and flower vases for 80 people, floated down from the ceiling onto the stage. "The Rosenthal representative next to me and I had slight beads of sweat on our foreheads - because an inclined position would have ruined the whole evening, and we wouldn't have been able to eat anything either," reports von Hellborn. But all the moves went as planned, the table stayed level and there was great joy in the room. Since then, the flying buffet has regularly floated down at company events or private birthday parties in the Capitol Theater.
Big thank-you party for lifesavers
Speaking of flying: even a helicopter has landed at the Capitol. The occasion was "Air Rescue Day" with the anniversary of Christoph 2's mission, which the Berufsgenossenschaftliche Unfallklinik Frankfurt (BGU) celebrated last late summer: the orange rescue helicopter had been in service for exactly 50 years on 11.09.22. In the evening, those responsible invited everyone involved from the rescue service, police, fire department, hospital, air rescue station, air traffic control and support association to a big thank-you party at the Capitol - and Christoph 2 himself made the best stage set. In order to place the helicopter there, it was dismantled into its fuselage and rotor and pushed across the side stage in individual parts.
Company presentations have also brought spectacular vehicles to the Capitol: in 2006, a brand new, bright red Alfa Romeo was parked in the atrium on Goethestrasse. "To be able to push the car through the entrance doors, we first had to remove all the mirrors," says Birgit von Hellborn. "Then the vehicle was hidden so cleverly that nobody saw it at the reception." It was only later that the sports car was unpacked with a big aha effect. Hans Klok would probably have enjoyed that too.
Live podcast and film award ceremony
The Managing Director herself staged another new format at the Capitol: she invited Bärbel Schäfer and Susanne Fröhlich to Offenbach for their very first live podcast in April 2022. The authors were on top form in front of a full house and afterwards were "so happy" (Bärbel Schäfer) about the successful evening. Six months earlier, the presenter had hosted the Hessian Film Award ceremony at the Capitol Theater: This event brought director and honorary award winner Volker Schlöndorff, among others, to the stage in Offenbach in autumn 2021.
The extraordinary events at the Capitol will continue in the anniversary year - for example, when the Theater der Welt Frankfurt-Offenbach gives its guest performance here at the end of June/beginning of July 2023. This international festival features interactive projects and invites spontaneous participation. More details can be found at the bottom of this page and on the Capitol homepage under Events.
Further information about the anniversary can also be found on the homepage and successively on the social media channels of the City of Offenbach and Capitol Theater.
