Miscellaneous Swiss theater director Vontobel receives Mario Adorf Prize

Honor for a Swiss theater maker in Germany: director Roger Vontobel, who works in Bern among other places, has been awarded this year's Mario Adorf Prize at the Nibelungen Festival in Worms.

Born in Zurich in 1977, Vontobel's "spectacular productions have inspired both critics and audiences to storms of enthusiasm", announced the organizers in the Rhineland-Palatinate city.

The prize is endowed with 10,000 euros and named after acting legend Mario Adorf (93, "Kir Royal"), one of the co-founders of the festival. The award is decided by a 16-member board of trustees from the worlds of politics, business, culture, science and the media.

Vontobel has been acting director at Bühnen Bern since the 2021/2022 season. In July, he staged the anti-war drama "The Diplomat" in Worms. Last year, actress Lena Urzendowsky was honored with the prize, which has been awarded since 2018.

Vontobel once discovered his passion for theater while traveling through Europe in a VW bus. He later studied drama directing at the University of Music and Drama in Hamburg. He has directed at various theaters such as Hamburg, Munich, Bochum, Berlin, Paris and Copenhagen. In 2006, he was voted "Young Director of the Year" in a critics' poll conducted by the trade journal "Theater heute".