Ernst Wendt (director, 1937)

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Ernst Wendt (born July 12, 1937 in Hanover ; † August 12, 1986 in Munich ) was a German radio play and theater director .

Life

Wendt began his theater career in 1960 as a theater critic. Together with Henning Rischbieter and the publisher Erhard Friedrich , in addition to studying economics in the same year, he founded the still most important theater magazine, Theater heute . With his reviews, which testified not only of literary quality and great expertise, but also of great empathy, he played a decisive role in the implementation of a new style of directing in German theater. He was the first to see the power of a new theater from directors like Peter Stein , where others still saw scandals.

Wendt's practical theater work began in 1967 when Hans Lietzau , the artistic director of the Residenztheater in Munich, made him his dramaturge. The preparations for Lietzau's productions increased their reputation and they later continued their collaboration at the Deutsches Schauspielhaus in Hamburg and the Staatliche Schauspielbühnen Berlin . In Berlin, Wendt directed his own production for the first time. In 1975 he was the premiere director of Thomas Bernhard's The President at the Vienna Akademietheater .

In 1976 Wendt separated from Lietzau and went back to Munich to the Münchner Kammerspiele , where he rose as a director until 1983 with a total of seventeen productions to become one of the great theater poets in Germany. He dealt with the classical theater repertoire , for example with William Shakespeare , Friedrich Schiller and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe , as well as with new young playwrights such as Thomas Brasch .

In 1980 Wendt was awarded the German Critics' Prize. Four of his productions were invited to the Berlin Theatertreffen , 1976 The Battle of Heiner Müller (Deutsches Schauspielhaus Hamburg), 1979 Lovely Rita by Thomas Brasch (Kammerspiele Munich) and Hölderlin's version of Antigonae (Theater Bremen), 1982 Goethe's Torquato Tasso (also at the Münchner Kammerspiele). In 1986 he went to the theater in der Josefstadt with the designated director Boy Gobert as senior director and dramaturge . Both died in the preparatory phase before the start of their first joint management season.

Radio plays

Director

Director and speaker

  • 1982: Christa Wolf : No place. Nowhere
  • 1985: Christa Wolf: Kassandra

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Berliner Theatertreffen : Extended search Ernst Wendt , accessed on June 7, 2020
personal data
SURNAME Wendt, Ernst
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German theater director
DATE OF BIRTH July 12, 1937
PLACE OF BIRTH Hanover
DATE OF DEATH August 12, 1986
Place of death Munich