The Schauspielhaus Zürich (Zürich playhouse) is one of the most prominent and important theatres

Theater (structure)

A theater or theatre is a structure where theatrical works or plays are performed or other performances such as musical concerts may be produced. While a theater is not required for performance , a theater serves to define the performance and audience spaces...

 in the German-speaking

German-speaking Europe

The German language is spoken in a number of countries and territories in West, Central and Eastern Europe...

 world. It is also known as "Pfauenbühne" (Pfauen Stage) after its location on the Pfauen Square in Zürich

Zürich

Zurich is the largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is located in central Switzerland at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich...

, Switzerland

Switzerland

Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....

. The large theatre has 750 seats. The Schauspielhaus also operates three stages in the Schiffbau in the western part of Zurich, the Schiffbau/Halle (400 seats), the Schiffbau/Box (up to 200 seats) and the Schiffbau/Matchbox (80 seats).

History

The building was constructed in 1892 as the Volkstheater am Pfauen (People's Theater on the Pfauen Square) with a Bavaria

Bavaria

Bavaria, formally the Free State of Bavaria is a state of Germany, located in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the largest state by area, forming almost 20% of the total land area of Germany...

n beer garden

Beer garden

Beer garden is an open-air area where beer, other drinks and local food are served. The concept originates from and is most common in Southern Germany...

 and a bowling alley. It served initially as a music hall

Music hall

Music Hall is a type of British theatrical entertainment which was popular between 1850 and 1960. The term can refer to:# A particular form of variety entertainment involving a mixture of popular song, comedy and speciality acts...

 or vaudeville

Vaudeville

Vaudeville was a theatrical genre of variety entertainment in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s. Each performance was made up of a series of separate, unrelated acts grouped together on a common bill...

 stage. In 1901 the building was rented by the director of the Zurich Opera House

Zurich Opera House

Opernhaus Zürich is an opera house in the Swiss city of Zurich. It has been the home of the Zurich Opera since 1891.- History :...

 and opened as a play house with Goethe's comedy Die Mitschuldigen (The Accomplices). From 1903 until 1926 the play house was run by a private cooperative.

In 1926 Zürich wine wholesaler and play house director Ferdinand Rieser acquired the house and had it renovated. Then in 1938 it was leased to the Neue Schauspiel AG, a company founded by the city of Zürich in order to save the theater from its financial difficulties. When the lease ran out in 1952, the citizens of Zürick refused to purchase the house for the proposed price of 3 million Swiss franc

Swiss franc

The franc is the currency and legal tender of Switzerland and Liechtenstein; it is also legal tender in the Italian exclave Campione d'Italia. Although not formally legal tender in the German exclave Büsingen , it is in wide daily use there...

s. Upon their refusal, UBS AG

UBS AG

UBS AG is a Swiss global financial services company headquartered in Basel and Zürich, Switzerland, which provides investment banking, asset management, and wealth management services for private, corporate, and institutional clients worldwide, as well as retail clients in Switzerland...

, a Swiss banking group, stepped in to purchase the building and arranged a new lease arrangement with the Neue Schauspiel AG.

However, the effort to establish an ambitious theater in Zürich was met with little success at first, and until 1933 the theater was rarely thought of outside of Switzerland.

After 1933, however, many important actors and directors immigrated to Switzerland from Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 and Austria

Austria

Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...

. With the help of these artists, the theater achieved great success, staging many anti-fascist works, importantly the world-premiers of several plays by Bertolt Brecht

Bertolt Brecht

Bertolt Brecht was a German poet, playwright, and theatre director.An influential theatre practitioner of the 20th century, Brecht made equally significant contributions to dramaturgy and theatrical production, the latter particularly through the seismic impact of the tours undertaken by the...

. During this time the Schauspielhaus Zürich was the largest free stage in the German-speaking world, as stages in Germany and Austria were strictly regulated.

After the war, the theater retained its important place in world and German-language theater. During this time it saw world premiers of such important playwrights as Max Frisch

Max Frisch

Max Rudolf Frisch was a Swiss playwright and novelist, regarded as highly representative of German-language literature after World War II. In his creative works Frisch paid particular attention to issues relating to problems of human identity, individuality, responsibility, morality and political...

 and Friedrich Dürrenmatt

Friedrich Dürrenmatt

Friedrich Dürrenmatt was a Swiss author and dramatist. He was a proponent of epic theatre whose plays reflected the recent experiences of World War II. The politically active author's work included avant-garde dramas, philosophically deep crime novels, and often macabre satire...

In 2002 and 2003 the theater experienced a new artistic blooming and was chosen as theater of the year twice by Theater heute (Theater Today), the most important and widely-read German theater publication.

Directors

• 1929 – 1938 Ferdinand Rieser
• 1938 – 1961 Oskar Wälterlin, Otto Tausig
• 1961 – 1964 Kurt Hirschfeld
• 1965 – 1968 Leopold Lindtberg
• 1968 – 1969 Teo Otto, Erwin Parker, Otto Weissert
• 1969 – 1970 Peter Löffler
• 1970 – 1977 Harry Buckwitz
• 1978 – 1982 Gerhard Klingenberg
• 1982 – 1989 Gerd Heinz
• 1989 – 1992 Achim Benning
  Achim Benning
  Achim Benning is a German actor and director.Benning finished his actor training in 1959 and was thereafter engaged at various German theatres. Starting in 1971, he began to work as a director, enabling him to become a director at the Viennese Burgtheater.-References:...
  
  
• 1992 – 1999 Gerd Leo Kuck
• 1999 – 2000 Reinhard Palm
• 2000 – 2004 Christoph Marthaler
• 2004 – 2005 Andreas Spillmann
• 2005 – 2009 Matthias Hartmann
• since 2009 Barbara Frey