LOTTE
Music: Marian Lux
Book & Lyrics: Kevin Schroeder
Creative Development: Christoph Drewitz
Inspired by Goethe’s epistolary novel The Sorrows of Young Werther, this musical shifts the focus to Lotte — the woman torn between two men, whose inner world becomes the heart of a story about friendship, love, and its tragic unraveling in the spirit of Sturm und Drang. Was it truly suicide? Rather than retelling Werther’s fate, the show offers a fresh perspective through the eyes of its female protagonist, revealing the emotional and intellectual lives of a generation in search of love, freedom, and fulfillment during the Age of Enlightenment. Told in contemporary language, the piece balances the weight of its subject with the wit and spark of its free-spirited characters. The show premiered at the Wetzlar Festival, staged at the historic Lottehaus, and received seven nominations for the German Musical Theatre Award, including Best Musical, Best Book, and Best Lyrics.
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“Follow your heart!”
— Lotte (My heart)
They say that’s what works…
“What does your heart say?”
What should it say, when you lose someone?
It just stays silent and empty
Pulls itself together, no matter how Hard life somehow goes on, but then He came
and my foolish, foolish heart ran after him
Bienvenue à Wetzlar!
La culture n’est pas très bon
Much too small and cramped,
And it reeks so harshly
Of provinces and petty-mindedness
Why Wetzlar, of all places?
Oh — pardon, forgive us —
Is there no taste here at all? Is everyone
Stuck in the past — and afraid to laugh?
Welcome to Wetzlar!
— The French (Welcome to Wetzlar)
But where is the amusement?
When any whore smells like a farmer
You drag yourself tired
Into the carriage in the morning
Every stone in this town drips with boredom
Respectable citizens everywhere!
Welcome to Wetzlar!
