Dr Daniel C. Schindler has been chief dramaturge at Dortmund Opera since the 2022/23 season. Previously, he worked as a dramaturge for the Hessian State Theatre in Wiesbaden, the Munich State Theatre on Gärtnerplatz and the National Theatre in Mannheim, among others. While studying theatre, media and musicology at the universities of Bayreuth and Bochum, he gained his first practical theatre experience at the Theater Baden-Baden, the Junge Oper Stuttgart, the Schauspiel Essen and the Musiktheater im Revier Gelsenkirchen, among others. His dissertation, entitled Kulturevent statt Eventkultur. Eine Untersuchung zukunftsweisender Potenziale im öffentlichen Musiktheaterbetrieb (Cultural Event Instead of Event Culture: An Investigation of Future Potential in Public Music Theatre) was published by Cuvillier Verlag Göttingen. He has also written articles for the Bayreuth Easter Festival, Pro Arte Frankfurt and the Rheingau Music Festival.

As a production dramaturg, he supervised new productions in the fields of opera, operetta, musical theatre, drama and dance, including various premieres and world premieres, such as the opera Frau Schindler by Thomas Morse (premiere: Munich 2017) and the musical Jugend ohne Gott by Paul Graham Brown (premiere: Wiesbaden 2022). The German premiere of György Kurtág's Fin de Partie at the Dortmund Opera (director: Ingo Kerkhof), which he accompanied as production dramaturg, was awarded the prestigious German theatre prize DER FAUST. He has worked with directors such as Nicolas Brieger, Lorenzo Fioroni, Torsten Fischer, Josef E. Köpplinger, Peter Konwitschny, Uwe Eric Laufenberg, Gil Mehmert, Christine Mielitz, Jetske Mijnssen, Bernd Mottl and Michael Sturminger, and with conductors such as Anthony Bramall, Marco Comin, Gabriel Feltz, Paul Goodwin, Konrad Junghänel, Patrick Lange, Sébastien Rouland, Jordan de Souza, Jac van Steen and Will Humburg, composers such as Paul Graham Brown, Kathrin A. Denner, Michael Essl, Thomas Morse, Sarah Nemtsov and Marc L. Vogler, and choreographers such as Marco Goecke, Erna Ómarsdóttir, Karl Alfred Schreiner, Cayetano Soto and Xin Peng Wang.

A particular focus of his artistic work to date has been the further development of contemporary musical theatre specifically for young audiences. Together with opera director Heribert Germeshausen, he is the artistic director of the Junge Oper Dortmund and the Dortmunder Bürger*innenOper. His most recent works include the libretti for the mobile children's opera Prinzessin sein? Nein, danke! as well as the youth operas Marie-Antoinette oder Kuchen für alle! and Was das Nashorn sah, als es auf die andere Seite des Zauns schaute. As managing dramaturg of an independent ensemble, the Junge Oper Münster, he was also responsible for the world premieres of the children's operas he wrote himself, Allein zu zweit (Alone Together, 2016), Wagner's RING für Kinder (RING for Children, 2013) and Lukas, der kleine Opernvampir (Lukas, the Little Opera Vampire, 2012). In the 2010/11 season, his Purim play Stella, the Zebra premiered at the Dortmund Children's Opera (now Junge Oper Dortmund).