Kay Voges was born in Düsseldorf. Since 1998, he has been working as a director at the Schauspiel and Oper Dortmund, Staatsoper Hannover, Schauspielhaus Hamburg, Staatsschauspiel Dresden, Burgtheater Wien and the Volksbühne Berlin. He is founding director of the Akademie für Theater und Digitalität in Dortmund. Because stages are machines and people always appear in relation to technology. Kay Voges searches for potentials, possibilities and varieties that may be hidden in technological innovation. A society has to conquer technology – not the other way around.

From 2010 to 2020, he was artistic director at the Schauspiel Dortmund, which has been chosen as the second-best theatre in the German-speaking region in the specialist journal Theater heute several times. In the yearly critic’s poll of the Welt am Sonntag, it was chosen thrice as the best theatre in North Rhine-Westphalia.

For his directing work, Voges has received several awards. Amongst others, the Heidelberger Stückemarkt invited »Das Goldene Zeitalter« in 2014 and in 2019, the NRW-Theatertreffen invited »Der Theatermacher«. At the latter festival, »Einige Nachrichten an das All« won the grand prize for Best Production in 2013; furthermore, the film was awarded both at the Artdocfest International Documentary Film Festival in St. Petersburg and the Sunset Film Festival Los Angeles.

Between 2020 and 2025, Kay Voges was artistic director at the Volkstheater Wien. Here, he staged the première of Alexander Kerlin’s »Bullet Time – Die Geburt des Kinos aus dem Geiste eines Mörders« as well as Jon Fosse’s »Der Name«. Now, the theatre maker is back in North Rhine-Westphalia and, since the 2025/26 season, artistic director at the Schauspiel Köln. For him it is clear: Democracy and theatre came into being at the same time. They will be destroyed together as well if they are not protected and supported.