Frank Castorf (born 17 July 1951 in

East Berlin East Berlin was the ''de facto'' capital city of East Germany from 1949 to 1990. Formally, it was the Allied occupation zones in Germany, Soviet sector of Berlin, established in 1945. The American, British, and French sectors were known as ...

) is a German theater director and was the artistic director of the ''

Volksbühne The Volksbühne ("People's Theatre") is a theater in Berlin. Located in Berlin's city center Mitte on Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz (Rosa Luxemburg Square) in what was the GDR's capital. It has been called Berlin's most iconic theatre. About The Vol ...

Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz, formerly the Bülowplatz, is a square in Berlin-Mitte, Germany. History The square is dominated by the Volksbühne and by the Karl-Liebknecht-Haus, the headquarters of the German Left Party. The party's predecessor, the ...

'' from 1992 to 2015. His work is often associated with

postdramatic theatre The notion of postdramatic theatre was established by German theatre researcher Hans-Thies Lehmann in his book ''Postdramatic Theatre'', summarising a number of tendencies and stylistic traits occurring in avant-garde theatre since the end of the ...

Biography

Early Years

Castorf's father was an ironmonger. Frank Castorf successfully completed his

schooling A school is an educational institution designed to provide learning spaces and learning environments for the teaching of students under the direction of teachers. Most countries have systems of formal education, which is sometimes compuls ...

in 1969/70, entering training for railway work. Between 1970 and 1972 he undertook military service with the army's National Border Force. Then, between 1971 and 1976, he attended the

Humboldt University of Berlin Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (german: Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, abbreviated HU Berlin) is a German public research university in the central borough of Mitte in Berlin. It was established by Frederick William III on the initiative o ...

, studying

theatrology Theatre studies (sometimes referred to as theatrology or dramatics) is the study of theatrical performance in relation to its literary, physical, psychobiological, sociological, and historical contexts. It is an interdisciplinary field which also e ...

. His teachers included

Ernst Schumacher Ernst Friedrich Schumacher (16 August 1911 – 4 September 1977) was a German-British statistician and economist who is best known for his proposals for human-scale, decentralised and appropriate technologies.Biography on the inner dustjacke ...

, Rudolf Münz and Joachim Fiebach. His diploma dissertation, which was formally commended, was entitled "Ground Rules for the 'Development' of Ionesco's Global Ideological Perspective and Artistic-Aesthetic Position". He made numerous culturally focused visits to

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous ...

during this period. In 1989, Klaus Pierwoß brought Castorf with a production of ''

Hamlet ''The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark'', often shortened to ''Hamlet'' (), is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play, with 29,551 words. Set in Denmark, the play depicts ...

'' to

Schauspiel Köln Schauspiel Köln is a theatre and company in Cologne, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It forms together with the Cologne Opera and other houses the Bühnen der Stadt Köln (Stages of the city of Cologne). The listed building has 830 seats in th ...

Cologne Cologne ( ; german: Köln ; ksh, Kölle ) is the largest city of the German western States of Germany, state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and the List of cities in Germany by population, fourth-most populous city of Germany with 1.1 m ...

. In 2013, he directed a "deliberately incoherent" production of the Ring Cycle at the Bayreuth Wagner Festival, which was booed by the audience.

References

Literature

Secondary material

* Hans-Thies Lehmann: ''

Postdramatic Theatre The notion of postdramatic theatre was established by German theatre researcher Hans-Thies Lehmann in his book ''Postdramatic Theatre'', summarising a number of tendencies and stylistic traits occurring in avant-garde theatre since the end of the ...

.'' translated and with an introduction by Karen Jübs-Munby, Routledge, London and New York 2006, .

External links

Official Volksbühne website (in German)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Castorf, Frank 1951 births German theatre directors Postmodern theatre Members of the Academy of Arts, Berlin Living people People from East Berlin Recipients of the Order of Merit of Berlin