Stadttheater Aschaffenburg, Public theatre in Aschaffenburg, Germany

Stadttheater Aschaffenburg is a performance venue on Schlossgasse featuring classical architecture with cast-iron columns whose bases and capitals are gilded. The building holds several spaces for different types of performances and serves the full range of programming throughout the year.

The theatre opened on 3 November 1811 as the Großherzoglich privilegiertes Theater, built on the site of the former Deutsches Haus, a Teutonic Order commandery secularised in 1806. Shareholders of the Casino-Gesellschaft, among them Dalberg's banker Alois Dessauer, bought the house, and Dalberg contributed the proceeds from selling his Nilkheim estate. The first director, Joseph Schemenauer from Bamberg, staged Vogel's Markgraf Georg Friedrich. In 1814 Aschaffenburg passed to Bavaria and the house became the Königlich privilegiertes Theater; the city bought it from Dessauer's heirs in 1851.

The theatre's name comes from the city that took it over in 1851, when Alois Dessauer's heirs sold it to Aschaffenburg. Its opening on 3 November 1811 featured the play Markgraf Georg Friedrich oder die Schlacht bei Wimpfen; in 1812 the Hofkapelle under Johann Franz Xaver Sterkel performed Mozart's Die Entführung aus dem Serail and Die Zauberflöte. Today the programme covers Schauspiel, concerts, dance theatre and Kleinkunst.

The theatre is centrally located on Schlossgasse and easy to reach on foot. When planning a visit, it helps to check what type of performance is on, since the spaces, lighting, and acoustics vary depending on the event.

The theatre stands on the site of the former Deutsches Haus, a Teutonic Order commandery bought in 1715 by Cardinal Damian Hugo Philipp von Schönborn-Buchheim. Its Renaissance Kronberger Hof, built in 1589 with volute gables, was absorbed into the later theatre buildings. The Deutschhaussaal ballroom opened on 4 November 1812, the name day of Prince Primate Carl Theodor.