Eugen Keller (theater director)

Eugen Keller (born July 18, 1880 in Basel , † November 4, 1948 in Bern ) was a Swiss theater director , actor and director .

Life

He was the son of the architect Johannes Keller from Dotnacht, a current district of Kemmental ( Thurgau ). After graduating from the canton school in Frauenfeld , Keller studied natural sciences at the ETH Zurich from 1899 to 1902 . After a few appearances in a Zurich student cabaret, however, he decided to become an actor and continued his autodidactic training . On December 19, 1902, he finally had his acting debut as Hermann in Schiller's Die Räuber at the Aarau City Theater .

From 1903 to 1904 he was a member of the cabaret Die elf Scharfrichter in Munich. His first positions as an actor were from 1905 to 1907 in Berlin , then in Hamburg , later in Heidelberg and from 1910 at the Stadttheater Basel . From 1912 he was engaged at the Schauspielhaus Düsseldorf , from 1917 also as a director. From 1916 - during the First World War - he was also a teacher at the local higher education institution for stage arts, which is why in the summer of 1916 he also gave language courses for jaw injuries in the Düsseldorf hospitals . From 1919 he was the main director of the school.

From 1921 he was senior director at the Hessisches Landestheater in Darmstadt and directed, among other things, the Lysistrata by Aristophanes in 1922 . For his expressionist staging of Shakespeare's royal drama Richard III. he received the highest praise from the press. In 1924 he also staged operas.

In 1925, Keller was acting director of the Gärtnerplatztheater in Munich , where he only managed two productions. Because as early as 1926 he went to the Städtische Bühne in Heidelberg as artistic director . From 1928 he was a freelance guest director - also at the Berlin State Opera . In 1930 he moved to the Würzburg City Theater , where he was replaced by Otto Reimann in 1936 . Presumably because of the National Socialists he returned to his homeland, where he completed his theater career from 1937 to 1946 as director of the Bern City Theater .

literature

Thomas Blubacher : Eugen Keller . In: Andreas Kotte (Ed.): Theater Lexikon der Schweiz . Volume 2, Chronos, Zurich 2005, ISBN 3-0340-0715-9 , p. 977.
Maria Keller-Andor, Edmund Stadler : Eugen Keller. Theater as a calling and obligation , Benteli Verlag, Bern 1962
Ingrid Bigler-Marschall: Keller, Eugen. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .

Individual evidence

↑ Thomas Blubacher : Liberation from Reality? Das Schauspiel am Stadttheater Basel 1933-1945 , Volume 2 of the Theatrum Helveticum series , Theaterkultur Verlag, 1995, ISBN 3-908145-27-9 and ISBN 978-3-908145-27-1 , page 42 ( excerpt )
^ Hellmut Flashar, Manfred Kraus: Eidola. Selected Small Writings , 1956, page 625 ( digitized version )
↑ Edmund Stadler (Ed.): Shakespeare and Switzerland. On the 400th birthday of William Shakespeare , Swiss Theater Yearbook, Volume 30, Swiss Society for Theater Culture, Theaterkultur-Verlag, 1964, page 26 ( excerpt )

personal data
SURNAME	Keller, Eugene
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Swiss theater director, actor and director
DATE OF BIRTH	July 18, 1880
PLACE OF BIRTH	Basel
DATE OF DEATH	November 4, 1948
Place of death	Bern

[1] Thomas Blubacher : Liberation from Reality? Das Schauspiel am Stadttheater Basel 1933-1945 , Volume 2 of the Theatrum Helveticum series , Theaterkultur Verlag, 1995, ISBN 3-908145-27-9 and ISBN 978-3-908145-27-1 , page 42 ( excerpt )

[2] Hellmut Flashar, Manfred Kraus: Eidola. Selected Small Writings , 1956, page 625 ( digitized version )

[3] Edmund Stadler (Ed.): Shakespeare and Switzerland. On the 400th birthday of William Shakespeare , Swiss Theater Yearbook, Volume 30, Swiss Society for Theater Culture, Theaterkultur-Verlag, 1964, page 26 ( excerpt )