Producer
Leopold Hoesch
Director
Matthias Schmidt
Producer
Nicholas von Brauchitsch
Genre
Culture
Broadcaster
ZDFtheaterkanal / 3sat / ZDFdokukanal
Length
1 x 30'
Editor
Lars Roland
Year
2003
Theatrescapes
Staatstheater Cottbus

Cottbus - the city in Lower Lusatia, in the very east of the republic, is known to many through its football club, FC Energie Cottbus. That the city on the edge of the Spreewald is also home to an architecturally extravagant state theatre is probably not so well known.

Esther Schweins introduces the theatre, which opened in 1908, and its exciting history in the bilingual city shaped by Germans and Sorbs. The style of the magnificent Cottbus theatre, built by the architect Bernhard Sehring, is always the subject of debate: Art Nouveau, say most. Eclecticism the experts.

Cottbus citizens prevented the demolition of the building in 1945, which had also served as an ammunition depot during the war. An elaborate six-year reconstruction in the 1980s repaired damage that had occurred over time. In autumn 1989, the Cottbus theatre became a political stage in the truest sense of the word. The theatre was the meeting place and discussion venue for the first Monday demonstration on 30 October 1989.

The Cottbus theatre has been a state theatre since 1992, the only one in the state of Brandenburg. In the same year, Christoph Schroth took over the directorship and subsequently made a name for himself above all with his spectacles called "Zonenrandermutigung", a festival with a folk theatre tradition. After eleven years, there will be a change this season; the new artistic director is Martin Schüler.

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