Fritz Leese

Fritz Leese (born March 6, 1909 in Soldin , † October 19, 2004 in Gudensberg ) was a German puppeteer and puppet theater director .

biography

He had practiced his profession since 1928 and at that time played mainly in Brandenburg and East Prussia. Guest tours took him to Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

After the war he rebuilt the Soldiner puppet theater named after his hometown in Kassel . He played there with 15 employees until 1957, then together with his wife Elfriede as a "two-person theater" until 1991.

Leese had the hand and stick puppets for his pieces created by many different and well-known puppet designers such as Erich Bemeleit, Fritz Herbert Bross, Hansjürgen Fettig, Jochen Grundmann, Herta Kastner, Lore Lafin or Wolfgang Kurock.

He was also a committed founding member of the Verband Deutscher Puppentheater eV, whose first managing director he was from 1968 to 1977. He was always very committed to more intensive collaboration between colleagues.

One of the first clearly outstanding results of the association's work was in 1973 the joint production of Friedrich Dürrenmatt's The Visit of the Old Lady on the occasion of the International Puppet Show in Braunschweig, in which ten stages participated. Directed by Peter Klaus Steinmann , Leese played in a memorable way - both covertly and in open play - the businessman Ill, on whom the revenge of Clare Zachanassian (played by Benita Steinmann ) is fulfilled.

For many years, Fritz Leese was in charge of the editorial and printing of the association's Puppenspiel-Information magazine. In 1984 he became an honorary member of the Verband Deutscher Puppentheater eV

With your memories Can you make a living from it ...? - a puppeteer tells Leese provides an exciting and vivid picture of contemporary history.

literature

• Leese, Fritz: Can you make a living from it ...? - a puppeteer tells , Verlag Puppen & Masken, Frankfurt a. M. 1986, ISBN 978-3-922220-31-2
• Obituary for Fritz Leese in: Puppen, Menschen, and Objects, 2002/2, No. 91, page 39f. ISSN  1619-3539

Web links

• Literature by and about Fritz Leese in the catalog of the German National Library