Sound Art · 2026-07-17
Live audio theatre is popular across Europe
Live audio drama is making a comeback: the radio play is staged in real time, before the audience, with sound effects produced live. Fresh examples from Germany, Spain and Hungary show the form's appeal.
Live audio drama (Live-Hörspiel in German, ficción sonora en directo in Spanish) is a performance in which the radio play is created on stage in real time: a few actors speak into microphones, a musician accompanies them, and a foley artist builds the soundscape from everyday objects — a miniature door, pebbles, crockery. There is no set or costume; the audience both watches the sound being made and imagines the scene.
In Germany the form is an established tradition: it has spread since the 2000s, and the Lauscherlounge, founded in 2003 by Oliver Rohrbeck (the voice of Die drei ???), raised it to an art form of its own with more than seven hundred performances. A current example is Karl May's Old Shatterhand, which in the 2026/27 season tours 30 German cities as a live radio play — starring Hardy Krüger Jr., Luna Schweiger and Volker Zack, directed and co-written by Klaus Krückemeyer.
In Spain the same form appears as a live radio-novela: Madrid's Despedida de Casada (Teatro Soho Madrid, 25 July) evokes the spirit of the classic Spanish radio-novela with live sound effects; it is written and directed by Pedro Pablo Picazo. The plot follows Sara, who is preparing for her divorce while her friends throw her a 'divorce party'.
Hungary has its own tradition too: Hungarian Radio recorded audio dramas before a live audience in its Rádiójátékszín series, and today the Örkény Theatre stages live audio drama with Csoda és Kósza (Wonder and Rover). In it eight actors tell Zoltán Czigány's tale of two horses using only their voices — producing every sound themselves; the production was directed by Pál Mácsai and is also billed as reader's theatre.
The common thread is 'cinema in the head': the story is built by sound and imagination, while the stage reveals the craft that usually stays invisible.
Sources: Wochenblatt Reporter (Karl May) (2026-07-14) · Livehörspiel – Wikipedia (a műfaj/hagyomány) · Guía del Ocio (Despedida de Casada) (2026-07-14) · Örkény Színház – Csoda és Kósza