The fringe ensemble was founded in 1999 by Frank Heuel as an independent, professional theatre. To date, over 100 productions, projects and project series have been created. The core team - consisting of artistic director Frank Heuel, set designer, video artist and digital expert Annika Ley, production manager Svenja Pauka, dramaturge and PR consultant Claudia Grönemeyer and dramaturge and assistant Lutz Ackermann – conceptualises new projects, devises the ensemble’s profile and realizes the productions. Depending on the project, the open ensemble of professional actors is complemented by artists and specialists from the fields of acting, music, digital media, film and visual arts. In addition, the ensemble is characterized by its collaboration with authors from numerous countries (fringe writers).

Starting from its home base in the Theater im Ballsaal in Bonn, the fringe ensemble establishes local, regional, national and international partnerships with other ensembles or institutions for the production and presentation of the plays, performs in theatres, in public urban and/or natural spaces as well as in museum spaces (most recently in the Kunstmuseum Bonn and Museum Koenig Bonn, among others).

In its projects, the team rarely uses existing material, but researches complex themes and contexts in order to span an arc from documentary, individual-subjective to philosophical positions. The fringe ensemble takes an open and experimental approach to its artistic work: During rehearsals, the artists develop the formal language for text, video, music, sound and performance in interaction with the performance space.

In recent years, numerous projects have been created in the border area between music, theatre and performance, both indoors and outdoors.