This article proposes a theatrically oriented, thematically structured course model for the upper level undergraduate German curriculum. The traditional focus on staging a single play in the German foreign language theater practicum neglects theater's potential to explore other literary genres and cultural texts and runs the danger of becoming an overly teacher-centered endeavor. But a thematically organized theater practicum supplants the dramatic text as the sole unifying element and creates more space for students to determine the shape and content of the final performance. Based on experience with teaching three iterations of such a course, I introduce strategies from drama pedagogy and creative writing that can be used to explore literary and cultural texts and simultaneously generate material for a final, cabaret-style production. Via specific examples, I consider how theater strategies can provide an engaging yet critical pathway into second-language literature and culture and make a case for further experimentation with theater as both a medium and a method in German literature and culture courses. (Contains 13 footnotes.)