GERMANY: FRANKFURT'S ENGLISH THEATRE PERFORMS INTERNATIONAL THEATRE FOR EX PATRIATES AND LOCAL RESIDENTS

Record ID: 390740

  • Title: GERMANY: FRANKFURT'S ENGLISH THEATRE PERFORMS INTERNATIONAL THEATRE FOR EX PATRIATES AND LOCAL RESIDENTS
  • Date: 12th December 2000
  • Summary: FRANKFURT, GERMANY (DECEMBER 12, 2000) (REUTERS - PERFORMANCE CLEARANCE FOR RESALE) WIDE OF LARGE SCREEN ON STAGE SHOWING THE PLAY'S CELEBRITY ACTOR, FRANKFURT'S MAYORESS PETRA ROTH VARIOUS, OF CAST PERFORMING SCENES FROM ' RETURN TO THE FORBIDDEN PLANET'
  • Embargoed: 27th December 2000 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: FRANKFURT, GERMANY
  • Country: Germany
  • Topics: Entertainment
  • Reuters ID: LVABS8SDTVGOTW6ON6QVWMW42V6U
  • Story Text: Deep in the heart of Frankfurt lies Germany's answer to Broadway or the West End! The English Theatre was founded in 1979 to provide English language theatre to both the thousands of homesick expatriates in the area and the many local Germans who yearned to see International theatre without travelling out of the country. The brainchild of native New Yorker Judith Rosenbauer, the theatre has not always had an easy time over the last twenty-one years and has often had to fight to stay open.
    Now housed in an art deco building opposite the city's imposing main train station, the theatre stages four plays a season. With its own recruitment agency in London it is able to make sure it doesn't miss out on what's happening in the theatre world outside Germany and thus ensure that it can always bring an authentic slice of New York's Broadway and London's West End to Frankfurt.
    At present, the theatre is staging the musical 'Return To The Forbidden Planet' which runs until the end of March.
    From humble beginnings in the late seventies, the English Theatre has grown to become one of the most important cultural institutions in Germany's finance capital. Although the theatre still struggles to raise eighty percent of its own budget, it no longer has to search for an audience as it did at its launch.
    "I sat down and I thought who could be interested in an English speaking theatre?. And of course, only our friends came and acquaintances and we had maybe seven people in the audience. And then I thought, well this is not going to be enough and then I thought of the schools in Germany. As of the fifth grade, those children who go to the 'Gymnasium', they start learning the English language, so by the time they are in the tenth grade, they are quite proficient in the English language. So we started by performing plays, as much as we could with the few actors that we had. We started performing the plays that were in the curriculum."
    The theatre is presently staging the musical 'Return To The Forbidden Planet', which is based loosely on Shakespeare's 'The Tempest', and is one of the many plays from the assorted dramas, musicals, thrillers and comedies that the theatre chooses because they suit a smaller theatre better.
    "I'd say that our productions are as good as anything you'll find on Broadway or London's West End and very often better. Our present production I had seen in the eighties in London at the Cambridge Theatre, it's a huge theatre with some 2000, 3000 (seats) and I hated it. I think our production is much better, it is probably true, because it is a piece that belongs to a smaller theatre, it doesn't have to be as small as ours, but it comes much better across in a smaller one."
    While the theatre has been very successful in winning loyal audiences from all walks of life and consolidating it's position in the city, it has had one or two strokes of luck, after ten years of being based in a cramped backyard on the outskirts of the Frankfurt, the city came to the rescue, building a brand new theatre for the group on the present site. Now, as the rent contract is running out, luck has once again come to the rescue.
    "This building here, the city of Frankfurt built this theatre for me; there isn't a door handle that I didn't personally choose. And I thought this was a one off chance in my life, but I'm getting this chance again. The city of Frankfurt has rented this building until 2005, after this they don't want to extend the rent contract because it is too expensive. Three years ago I thought 'Oh God, what will happen to this theatre', and at this time, Dresdner Bank were planning their new skyscraper just three hundred metres away.
    So I went to the chairman and I suggested that they build us a new theatre in this building. They said yes, so from 2003, we will be based in the Dresdner Bank."
    With the future of the Frankfurt theatre assured, Judith Rosenbauer is currently planning to build another theatre in Germany's capital Berlin, allowing plays to continue their run after Frankfurt. Hopefully this will allow a new group of English Theatre fans to enjoy a piece of Broadway, or the West End, in Germany.
    - ENDS-
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