English Theater Berlin
English Theater Berlin is a purely English-language theater with two stages in Berlin-Kreuzberg .
history
Founded in 1990 by Bernd Hoffmeister and Martin Kamratowski under the name of Friends of the Italian Opera - after the code name of the mafia in Billy Wilder's film Some Like It Hot - the then still German-speaking stage opened on June 17, 1990 with a production of Eduardo de Filippo's Art of Comedy . The first English-language production at the house was a guest performance by the Berlin group Out To Lunch with Joy Cutler's play Noodle Highway in the winter of 1990, and the first international guest performance was a Beckett program by Irish actor Chris O'Neill.
Since 1991 the house has been discovered more and more by the English-speaking theater scene, guest performances by performers and groups such as Gayle Tufts , Lindy Annis , Jon Flynn, Berlin Playactors, Out To Lunch or the Berliner Grundtheater became the rule, so that the house became pure in 1993 English-speaking theater and the name was changed to Friends of Italian Opera - The English Theater.
In 2006 the house changed its name and has since been called the English Theater Berlin.
Since 2008, the English Theater Berlin, together with the Thikwa Theater, which works with people with disabilities, has been playing the F40, a theater with a 140-seat stage and a 60-seat studio stage.
Günther Grosser has been the artistic director since 1993 and Bernd Hoffmeister is the managing director. American theater maker Daniel Brunet has been part of the management team as Producing Artistic Director since 2012 .
program
The English Theater Berlin regularly presents international guest performances and mainly produces contemporary pieces and performances as well as new works by young authors. From the beginning, the house acted as the artistic center of the English-speaking Berlin theater scene and in this function works closely with a large number of theater makers. Since 2013 the English Theater Berlin has been functioning as an International Performing Arts Center with English as the working language. The house's great successes included Travels With My Aunt by Graham Greene (2001, director: Benjamin Twist), Orpheus Descending by Tennessee Williams (2008/09, director: Günther Grosser) and Echter Berliner !!!! You Don't Fuck You by Daniel Brunet (2013).
The English Theater Berlin offers a broad educational theater and workshop program for schoolchildren and has carried out partner projects from a wide variety of topics with various Berlin schools since 2002 - also as part of the Senate-initiated TUSCH (theater and schools) program.
Since 2010, the English Theater Berlin, in cooperation with Prof. Regine Hengge , microbiologist at Humboldt University, has put a programmatic focus on the subject of 'Science & Theater'. The project was funded by the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences , the Schering Foundation and the Heinz and Heide Dürr Foundation.