Nuran David Calis, born in Bielefeld, is an author and director. He studied directing at the Otto Falckenberg School in Munich and produced music videos for hip-hop bands. His plays and productions are regularly performed at renowned German-speaking opera houses and theaters in Hamburg, Berlin, Cologne, Leipzig, Basel, and Vienna. In addition to his productions of classical theater texts, he also devotes himself to rewritings such as Frühlingserwachen! (LIVE FAST - DIE YOUNG), Othello X, and Nathan. He is considered an expert in documentary theater formats with a political focus. His production of Die Lücke – Ein Stück Keupstraße, in which witnesses to the NSU nail bomb attack of 2004 spoke on stage at the Schauspiel Köln, caused a great stir. Further projects on the NSU complex followed, such as NSU 2.0 and Leaks von Mölln bis Hanau at Schauspiel Frankfurt as well as 438 Tage NSU-Prozess at Kunstfest Weimar.
In 2008, his first film, Meine Mutter, mein Bruder und ich (My Mother, My Brother and I), was released in cinemas. In 2010, he filmed Frank Wedekind's Frühlings Erwachen (Spring Awakening) for ZDF/ARTE/3SAT and in 2012 Georg Büchner's Woyzeck.nHis debut novel Der Mond ist unsere Sonne (The Moon is Our Sun) was published by S. Fischer Verlag in 2011, followed by his second novel Rausch (Intoxication) in 2026.
Furthermore, Nuran David Calis has been appointed to numerous juries and advisory boards, including the Art College Advisory Board of North Rhine-Westphalia, the board of trustees for the Solingen 93 exhibition, and the jury for the 2023 Federal Theater Prize. Since the beginning of the 2025/2026 season, Nuran David Calis has been the artistic director at the Salzburg State Theater.
