Neuenstadt open-air theater
The Neuenstadt open-air theater is a division of the Liederkranz 1835 e. V. The club area with the open-air stage is located in Neuenstadt am Kocher in the moat of the Neuenstadt renaissance castle . The stage is used for amateur theater performances every summer .
history
The beginnings
After Neuenstadt had been destroyed to 80% in the Second World War , the aim was to fill the moat of the castle with rubble during the reconstruction. But thanks to Willi Carl and Emil Ermold, both from Neuenstadt, it never came to that. Together with the surveying engineer Eugen Kreß, they planned a party next to the historic linden tree . With the help of singers from the Liederkranz, the round stage with the rising rows of seats, which resembles an amphitheater and was inaugurated on the occasion of a song festival organized by the Neuenstadt Liederkranz in 1951, was built in thousands of hours of work.
Der Liederkranz 1835 e. V. had not only singers, but also ambitious actors in its ranks. Every year for the association's Christmas party, a play was performed in the hall of the Stern inn . 230 seats were soon not enough, more and more spectators wanted to see the performances.
The founding members of the Neuenstadt open-air theater, Karl Huebner, Fritz Walter and Ernst Tenscher, therefore had the idea of playing plays in summer and staging them in the castle moat.
In the summer of 1958, the time had come: The first piece, Es sind drei Burschen , was played three times. Everything - from the lighting to the costumes to the stage set - was spartan. Even as the equipment became more complex over the years, every year all the material had to be carried by cart from the former storage room in the Gasthof Stern for an almost endless 1000 meters to the stage. The rehearsals also took place in a side room of the inn. The Neuenstadt open-air theater became more widely known in the 1960s through recordings by the Süddeutscher Rundfunk . This is how I came into contact with the author Paul Wanner , who gave new impulses and worked as a director in Neuenstadt for several years. He wrote the play Das Neuenstadtter Herzogsspiel , which was performed in 1963, especially for Neuenstadt .
Securing the location
Those responsible for the association showed almost entrepreneurial foresight and willingness to take risks when they bought the building, which was for sale right next to the open-air theater, in 1966 for 72,000 marks as a club house: a former doctor's villa with three floors, built around the turn of the century. Thus, the location of the association could be secured in the long term directly on the stage in the castle moat. Country, city, song wreath and club members were just for the necessary credit. On November 19, 1966, the house was put into operation with a conference of the South German open-air theaters. This meeting served to prepare for the foundation of the Association of German Open Air Theaters (VDF), Region South . In 1967 the house at Lindenstrasse 4 was used as a new clubhouse after the renovation. Today the building houses costume tailoring and stock (in the attic), a theater office, make-up and changing rooms, a kitchen, the caretaker family's apartment and the small linden theater .
Expansion of the open-air theater
In 1972, the two middle blocks B and C were protected from wind and weather by a roof for the first time. 400 seats were now dry even in the rain. The long-standing stage builder Eugen Kreß was the designer of this cantilever tent roof, which is still unique in the open-air theater scene. In 1977 it was played continuously every Friday, Saturday and Sunday for the first time. To mark the anniversary of the 25th season there was an open house in 1982, and the then 87-year-old author Paul Wanner also attended the premiere of the piece he wrote, Die Altweibermühle . In 1986 the tent roof construction was extended to Block D so that over 600 spaces are now covered. Block A was not allowed to be considered to this day for reasons of monument protection.
The tent roof is put up every spring and dismantled in the late year.
Memorial sign on the tent roof structure
The tarpaulins are drawn into the construction
The fan opens
The connecting middle tarpaulin is drawn in
The second roof over Block D is opened
Extensions and modern times
In 1997 the International Amateur Theater Days took place in Neuenstadt, a concert with the group Des Geyers Schwarze Haufen was organized, and the Jazzfrühschoppen, which has been held regularly in September since then, was held for the first time. In order to set up the association more broadly, the Small Linden Theater was founded in 2000 . Since then, plays have been performed in front of 44 to 50 spectators on the small room stage in the clubhouse.
In 2007 the open-air games celebrated their 50th season with the musical Anatevka , the play In der Klemme performed by the youth group and numerous other events. From the beginning of the performances in 1958 to the end of the anniversary season, more than 640,000 visitors had attended the summer plays in the Neuenstädter Schlossgraben. In 2010, with the Junge Kammerbühne, the third venue was introduced in the club's multi-purpose building, which offers space for 51 spectators. Here mainly the youngsters from the children and youth group show their projects. But experimental pieces are also performed here.
Stage in the castle moat
The small linden theater
The Junge Kammerbühne
Chronicle of the performances
(only stage in the castle moat)
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statistics
The Neuenstadt open-air theater is one of the most successful amateur stages in the region and is attended by around 18,000 spectators in the summer play every year.
The most successful season was recorded in 2016 with the comedy Kohlhiesl's Töchter , which was seen by 21,586 viewers in 25 performances. This is followed by the musical comedy Die Drei von der Gasstelle from 2015 with 21,222 viewers in 25 performances.
The folk play The Seven Swabians was performed most frequently in 1988 with 26 performances. Up until 2016, the house of Montevideo from 1989 had the most visitors per performance with 855.57 spectators. However, this record was exceeded with the staging of Kohlhiesl's Töchter : Here there were 863.44 visitors per performance with an occupancy rate of 102.67 percent.
Most of the plays were staged by Paul Wanner. In the course of time, the Neuenstadt amateur actors brought a total of 13 plays by this author to the stage.
literature
- playing 50. Fifty years of the Neuenstadt open-air theater . Liederkranz 1835 e. V. Neuenstadt, Dept. Freilichtspiele, Neuenstadt am Kocher 2007
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Neuenstadt open-air theater, review . Freilichtspiele-neuenstadt.de. June 10, 1988. Retrieved August 8, 2013.
Coordinates: 49 ° 14 ′ 15 ″ N , 9 ° 19 ′ 50.5 ″ E