“Germany is not the only country that has become dependent on large US tech companies when it comes to digital technology... The question of who will hold the power in the future, the (unelected) tech companies or politicians, hardly seems far-fetched. Munich-based theater director Christiane Mudra touches on this sore point in her production ”freiheit.exe" (freedom.exe).
(...)
What remains is amazement at how large the network is, how many connections exist. And one wonders why we are not working harder to develop a society in which we will want to live in the future.”

Yvonne Poppek, Süddeutsche Zeitung, 25.11.25

Christoph Leibold: Investigative journalism is a term most people are familiar with, and they also have a rough idea of what it means. Journalism that researches, investigates, and, when in doubt, probes further to uncover abuses. Investigative theater is what director Christiane Mudra calls what she does. For her plays, whether about right-wing extremism or exploitation in the workplace, she does a lot of research, talks to experts, and tries to reveal connections. Tomorrow evening, her new play will premiere at the Whitebox in Munich's Werksviertel district. Before that, she'll be stopping by our studio. (...) What drives you?

Christiane Mudra: I think a sense of justice and also the conviction that theater is, in my opinion, a great platform for politically and socially relevant topics, if only because you can tell stories using so many different means, because you can bring people into a world of experience in a sensory way, i.e., you can create a change of perspective, and because you are in a space together. In other words, the co-presence, the discourse that can arise from a theater production, is something I consider to be a huge plus, especially now in this very digital world where many people are becoming more isolated.

Interview mit Christop Leibold, B2 Kulturleben, 21.11.25

In November, I attended the play freiheit.exe by Christiane Mudra, a director and journalist whose work has interested me for some time due to her diverse activities. In this context, I became aware of the composer, pianist, and singer Dariya Maminova, born in 1988 in Saint Petersburg. She composed the music for freiheit.exe as well as for the music theater project BETA, also in collaboration with Christiane Mudra. (...)

Can you tell us more about the play BETA and your collaboration with director and journalist Christiane Mudra? What was the artistic process like and how did your composition come about?

dm At the beginning, there was a lot of text because Christiane is a director and journalist and she has many important things to say in this piece. We knew there would be three singers and three actresses, meaning theater and music. (...) The piece was conceived for the Tischlerei at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, so it was actually geared toward music. Christiane is very open-minded and I was able to do whatever I wanted. I had the idea of orchestrating everything that is spoken, even when the actresses are talking. That was already moving in the direction of improvisation – (...) I then orchestrated the actresses' spoken words without disturbing their intonation and tempo.

Johanna Lucia Pohlmann, Positionen, Februar 2026

Christiane Mudra, founder of “investigative theater,” delved deep into the visionary minds of Silicon Valley innovators for her long-term journalistic research on the project “freiheit.exe – Utopias as Malware” and developed a disturbing performance based on their crude fantasies, which unfortunately also convince many people in this country.
(...) From quotes by “thought leader” Nick Land and libertarian Peter Thiel, founder of PayPal, Christiane Mudra (text and direction) distills a crude mixture of reactionary and supposedly progressive ideas that draw on sources such as fascism, classism, and racism in order to subordinate the conformist masses to the new “superhuman.”
AI-generated film sequences are projected onto the screens, images from Fritz Lang's silent film “Metropolis” – but the dark figures marching in lockstep are all staring at their cell phones. However, our current socio-political situation is not left out either, for example when it comes to the debt brake or the critical examination of the surveillance tool Palantir.

Barbara Reitter-Welter, Donaukurier, 25.11.25

The Chaos Communication Congress deals with encryption, data protection, and digital self-determination.
Christiane Mudra examines the operating systems behind the operating systems: the worldviews of tech billionaires. She combines journalistic research with performative presentation. This is called “investigative theater.” With her play “freiheit.exe – Utopias as Malware,” Christiane Mudra conveys tech knowledge to the audience. (...) Christiane Mudra's latest play, freiheit.exe – Utopias as Malware, deals with the worldviews of tech billionaires, which they install in our digital infrastructure. Mudra has done a lot of research for this. Research is an integral part of investigative theater. (...)

C. Mudra: I started with Filippo Tommaso Marinetti's Futurist Manifesto from 1909. He was very enthusiastic about the developments of the time and fixated on the theme of speed. He describes technology as something destructive, brutal, masculine. That brings us to misogyny. And he celebrates war as, quote, “the only hygiene of the world.”

Zum Beitrag von Ursi Grimm, Radio Bern RABE, 06.01.26