The Schiller Theater is a theatre building in Berlin, Germany. It is located in the central Charlottenburg district at Bismarckstraße 110, near Ernst-Reuter-Platz.
- Venue
- Schiller Theater
- Town
- Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf, DE
The Schiller Theater is a theatre building in Berlin, Germany. It is located in the central Charlottenburg district at Bismarckstraße 110, near Ernst-Reuter-Platz. Opened in 1907, the building served as a second venue for the Prussian State Theatre company in the 1920s and 1930s. After post-war rebuilding, it was the main stage of the Berlin State Theatres from 1951, until in 1993, the City Senate decided to close it for financial reasons. Since then, it has been rented out for theatre performances and other events, and was used by the Berlin State Opera as an interim venue during extensive renovation work from 2010 to 2017. The Schiller Theater was built from 1905 to 1906 according to plans by the Munich architect Max Littmann on behalf of Schiller-Theater company and the then-independent city of Charlottenburg. Littmann, founder of the Heilmann & Littmann contracting business, had considerable experience in theatre architecture, having designed and built the Munich Prinzregententheater and Kammerspiele in 1900-1901. The building complex comprised a theatre hall, a multipurpose room, as well as a restaurant. The sculptural decorations were designed by the sculptors Düll and Petzold, and the decoration of the auditorium and the painted curtain is by Julius Mössel. The 1,194-seat theatre was opened on 1 January 1907 with Die Räuber by Friedrich Schiller, and continued to be run by the Schiller-Theater-Gesellschaft with their own theatre company. Established as part of the "People's Theatre" (Volksbühne) movement, the Slavicist and intellectual Raphael Löwenfeld, founding member of the Central Association of German Citizens of the Jewish Faith, was the initiator and manager of the original ensemble. He had already inaugurated a Schiller Theater Ost in Berlin's Königstadt quarter in 1894 and a Schiller Theater Nord in the Oranienburger Vorstadt in 1896. Likewise, the Charlottenburg venue was meant to provide socially marginalised groups with access to stage plays by He