Bertolt Brecht
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Bertolt Brecht
Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht (10 February 1898 – 14 August 1956), known as Bertolt Brecht and Bert Brecht, was a German theatre practitioner, playwright, and poet. Coming of age during the Weimar Republic, he had his first successes as a playwright in Munich and moved to Berlin in 1924, where he wrote ''The Threepenny Opera'' with Elisabeth Hauptmann and Kurt Weill and began a life-long collaboration with the composer Hanns Eisler. Immersed in Marxist thought during this period, Brecht wrote didactic ''Lehrstücke'' and became a leading theoretician of epic theatre (which he later preferred to call "dialectical theatre") and the . When the Nazi Party, Nazis came to power in Germany in 1933, Brecht fled his home country, initially to Scandinavia. During World War II he moved to Southern California where he established himself as a screenwriter, while also being surveilled by the FBI. In 1947, he was part of the first group of Hollywood film artists to be subpoenaed by the Ho ...
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Augsburg
Augsburg ( , ; ; ) is a city in the Bavaria, Bavarian part of Swabia, Germany, around west of the Bavarian capital Munich. It is a College town, university town and the regional seat of the Swabia (administrative region), Swabia with a well preserved Altstadt (historical city centre). Augsburg is an Urban districts of Germany, urban district and home to the institutions of the Augsburg (district), Landkreis Augsburg. It is the List of cities in Bavaria by population, third-largest city in Bavaria (after Munich and Nuremberg), with a population of 304,000 and 885,000 in its metropolitan area. After Neuss, Trier, Worms, Germany, Worms, Cologne and Xanten, Augsburg is one of Germany's oldest cities, founded in 15 BC by the Romans as Augsburg#Early history, Augusta Vindelicorum and named after the Roman emperor Augustus. It was a Free Imperial City from 1276 to 1803 and the home of the patrician (post-Roman Europe), patrician Fugger and Welser families that dominated European ban ...
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Hanne Hiob
Hanne Hiob (12 March 1923 – 23 June 2009) was a German actress. Early life Hiob was born on 12 March 1920 as Hanne Marianne Brecht in Munich, the daughter of the writer Bertolt Brecht and his then wife, the opera singer and actress Marianne Zoff. In February 1928, Zoff had a daughter, Ursula Lingen, by German actor Theo Lingen. In September 1928, Brecht and Zoff divorced; Zoff married Lingen later that year. Hanne Brecht later married Joachim Hiob. Hanne grew up with her mother and Theo Lingen, and Lingen was able to protect his wife, who was classified as a half-Jew under the Nazi-regime, and his daughter from persecution. Career Hanne Brecht studied dance at the Vienna State Opera. From 1941 she worked as a dancer and an actress in Salzburg, Austria. Among other parts, she played the leading role in Brecht's '' Señora Carrar's Rifles'' and in 1959 in '' Saint Joan of the Stockyards'' under the direction of Gustaf Gründgens. She performed in Munich, Hamburg, Frankfurt ...
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Nazi Party
The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party ( or NSDAP), was a far-right politics, far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that created and supported the ideology of Nazism. Its precursor, the German Workers' Party (; DAP), existed from 1919 to 1920. The Nazi Party emerged from the Extremism, extremist German nationalism, German nationalist ("Völkisch nationalism, ''Völkisch'' nationalist"), racism, racist, and populism, populist paramilitary culture, which fought against communism, communist uprisings in post–World War I Germany. The party was created to draw workers away from communism and into nationalism. Initially, Nazi political strategy focused on anti-big business, anti-bourgeoisie, and anti-capitalism, disingenuously using socialist rhetoric to gain the support of the lower middle class; it was later downplayed to gain the support of business leaders. By the 1930s, the party's main focus shifted to Antisemit ...
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Epic Theatre
Epic theatre () is a theatrical movement that arose in the early to mid-20th century from the theories and practice of a number of theatre practitioners who responded to the political climate of the time through the creation of new political dramas. Epic theatre is not meant to refer to the scale or the scope of the work, but rather to the form that it takes. Epic theatre emphasizes the audience's perspective and reaction to the piece through a variety of techniques that deliberately cause them to individually engage in a different way. The purpose of epic theatre is not to encourage an audience to suspend their disbelief, but rather to force them to see their world as it is. History The term "epic theatre" comes from Erwin Piscator who coined it during his first year as director of Berlin's Volksbühne (1924–27).Wiles (1980). Piscator aimed to encourage playwrights to address issues related to "contemporary existence." This new subject matter would then be staged by me ...
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Lehrstücke
The (; singular ) are a radical and experimental form of Modernism, modernist theatre developed by Bertolt Brecht and his collaborators from the 1920s to the late 1930s. The ''Lehrstücke'' stem from Brecht's epic theatre techniques but as a core principle explore the possibilities of learning through acting, playing roles, adopting postures and attitudes etc. and hence no longer divide between actors and audience. Brecht himself translated the term as ''learning-play'', emphasizing the aspect of learning through participation, whereas the German term could be understood as ''teaching-play''. Reiner Steinweg goes so far as to suggest adopting a term coined by the Brazilian avant garde theatre director Zé Celso, ''Theatre of Discovery'', as being even clearer.Steinweg, ReinerTwo Chapters from "Learning Play and Epic Theatre"/ref> Definition Although the texts have a highly formal, rigorous structure, this is designed to facilitate insertions or deletions (according to the exig ...
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Marxist
Marxism is a political philosophy and method of socioeconomic analysis. It uses a dialectical and materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to analyse class relations, social conflict, and social transformation. Marxism originates from the works of 19th-century German philosophers Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Marxism has developed over time into various branches and schools of thought, and as a result, there is no single, definitive " Marxist theory". Marxism has had a profound effect in shaping the modern world, with various left-wing and far-left political movements taking inspiration from it in varying local contexts. In addition to the various schools of thought, which emphasize or modify elements of classical Marxism, several Marxian concepts have been incorporated into an array of social theories. This has led to widely varying conclusions. Alongside Marx's critique of political economy, the defining ...
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Hanns Eisler
Hanns Eisler (6 July 1898 – 6 September 1962) was a German-Austrian composer. He is best known for composing the national anthem of East Germany, for his long artistic association with Bertolt Brecht, and for the scores he wrote for films. The Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler Berlin is named after him. Family background Johannes Eisler was born in Leipzig in Saxony, the third child of Rudolf Eisler, a professor of philosophy, and Marie Ida Fischer. His father was an atheist of Jewish descent and his mother was Lutheran of Swabian descent. In 1901, the family moved to Vienna. His older brother Gerhart was a Communist journalist, and his older sister Elfriede was a leader of the Communist Party of Germany in the 1920s. After emigrating to North America, she turned into an anti-Stalinist, his sister testified against him and his brother before the House Un-American Activities Committee. Early years As his family could not afford music lessons nor a piano, Eisler had to tea ...
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Kurt Weill
Kurt Julian Weill (; ; March 2, 1900April 3, 1950) was a German-born American composer active from the 1920s in his native country, and in his later years in the United States. He was a leading composer for the stage who was best known for his fruitful collaborations with Bertolt Brecht. With Brecht, he developed productions such as his best-known work, ''The Threepenny Opera'', which included the ballad "Mack the Knife". Weill held the ideal of writing music that served a socially useful purpose,Kurt Weill
Cjschuler.net. Retrieved on August 22, 2011.
'' Gebrauchsmusik''. He also wrote several works for the concert hall and a number of works on Jewish themes. He became a United States citizen in 1943.


Family and childhood

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Elisabeth Hauptmann
Elisabeth Hauptmann (20 June 1897, Peckelsheim, Westphalia, German Empire – 20 April 1973, East Berlin) was a German writer who worked with fellow German playwright and director Bertolt Brecht. She got to know Brecht in 1922, the same year she came to Berlin. She worked as a secretary for the German-American poet and writer Herman George Scheffauer.See Sabine Kebir, ''Ich fragte nicht nach meinem Anteil: Elisabeth Hauptmanns Arbeit mit Bertolt Brecht'' I didn't ask about my share: Elisabeth Hauptmann's work with Bertolt Brecht"(Aufbau-Verlag GmbH: Berlin 1997), p. 22. She began collaborating with Brecht in 1924, and is listed as co-author of ''The Threepenny Opera'' (1928). She purportedlyJohn Fuegi, ''Brecht & Co.: Sex, Politics and the Making of the Modern Drama'' (New York: Grove Press, 1994). wrote the majority of the text as well as providing a German translation of John Gay's '' The Beggar's Opera'', on which the musical play is based, as working material for Brecht an ...
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Weimar Republic
The Weimar Republic, officially known as the German Reich, was the German Reich, German state from 1918 to 1933, during which it was a constitutional republic for the first time in history; hence it is also referred to, and unofficially proclaimed itself, as the German Republic. The period's informal name is derived from the city of Weimar, which hosted the constituent assembly that established its government. In English, the republic was usually simply called "Germany", with "Weimar Republic" (a term introduced by Adolf Hitler in 1929) not commonly used until the 1930s. The Weimar Republic had a semi-presidential system. Toward the end of the First World War (1914–1918), Germany was exhausted and suing for peace, sued for peace in desperate circumstances. Awareness of imminent defeat sparked a German Revolution of 1918–1919, revolution, Abdication of Wilhelm II, the abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm II, the proclamation of the Weimar Republic on 9 November 1918, and formal cessa ...
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Theatre Practitioner
A theatre practitioner is someone who creates theatrical performances and/or produces a theoretical discourse that informs their practical work. A theatre practitioner may be a director, dramatist, actor, designer or a combination of these traditionally separate roles. ''Theatre practice'' describes the collective work that various theatre practitioners do. The term was not ordinarily applied to theatre-makers prior to the rise of modernism in the theatre. Instead, theatre praxis from Konstantin Stanislavski's development of his system is described through Vsevolod Meyerhold's biomechanics, Antonin Artaud's Theatre of cruelty, Bertolt Brecht's epic, and Jerzy Grotowski's poor theatre. Contemporary theatre practitioners include Augusto Boal with his Theatre of the Oppressed The Theatre of the Oppressed (TO) describes theatrical forms that the Brazilian theatre practitioner Augusto Boal first elaborated in the 1970s, initially in Brazil and later in Europe. Boal was influe ...
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