Voigtländer studied philosophy, theater studies and modern German literature in Berlin from 1979 to 1985. She was then engaged by the artistic director Jürgen Flimm at the Thalia Theater in Hamburg. From 1991 to 1992 she was dramaturg-in-residence at the Nottingham Playhouse, from 1992 to 1995 dramaturg at the Nationaltheater Mannheim and then for five years at the Württembergisches Staatstheater Stuttgart. In 2000/2001 she was managing dramaturg at the Deutsches Schauspielhaus in Hamburg.
From 2001 Voigtländer worked as a freelance dramaturg and editor – among others for the Schaubühne am Lehniner Platz in Berlin and for the Staatsschauspiel Dresden. She was an editor and juror for the Werkstatttage at the Burgtheater in Vienna, and a dramaturge at the Salzburg Festival in 2005 and 2006, where she directed the Young Directors Project and the “Dichter zu Gast” format. She has been engaged as a production dramaturg by directors Martin Kušej, Stephan Kimmig and Ute Rauwald, among others. Kušej hired her for his productions of Horváth’s Zur schönen Aussicht (2006) and of Ibsen’s Baumeister Solness (2007) at the Deutsches Schauspielhaus Hamburg. She worked for the Ruhrtriennale from 2007 to 2011, and as chief dramaturg from 2009.
Voigtländer was brought to Schauspiel Düsseldorf in October 2013 by Intendant Manfred Weber as designated chief dramaturg, but already resigned in April 2014 after Weber’s dismissal and the appointment of Günther Beelitz. Since 2015, she has worked as head dramaturg at Vienna’s Burgtheater, including for productions by directors Andreas Kriegenburg and Antú Romero Nunes, Milos Lolic, Luk Perceval, Martin Kusej.
Since 2000, Voigtländer has taught at the Institute for Theater, Music Theater and Film at the University of Hamburg, now Theaterakademie Hamburg, where she initiated and curates the Hamburg Poetics Lecture and the DRAMA! festival. Since 2013 Voigtländer has been a juror and mentor for the Retzhofer Dramapreis, and since 2018 she has taught at the Applied Dramaturgy course at MdW Vienna.
