Schauspiel Essen

The Grillo-Theater has been the main venue of the drama ensemble in Essen since 1988. It is located in the city centre and has its origin in the city theatre opened in 1892, donated by Wilhelmine Grillo, widow of the entrepreneur Friedrich Grillo. It is among the oldest theatres in the Ruhr area. On the site of today's theatre building once stood the Clevische Hof. Later, until the early 1890s, there was the two-storey building of a Protestant school and a small residential house in which Friedrich Schulte ran a paper business, as well as the parental home of the widow Grillo. Friedrich Grillo's wife Wilhelmine Grillo (née von Born, 1829–1904) fulfilled the promise of her husband, who was also interested in art and had died by the time of the founding, donated the site and covered more than two-thirds of the total costs of 937,997 marks. The theatre building was erected in the neo-Baroque style to designs by the Berlin architect Heinrich Seeling.