Schauspielhaus Zürich

The Schauspielhaus Zürich performs at the Pfauen on Heimplatz, a building erected in 1892 as a people's theatre with a beer garden and bowling alley, which opened as a playhouse in 1901 with Goethe's Die Mitschuldigen. From 1933 director Ferdinand Rieser took émigré actors such as Therese Giehse and Albert Bassermann into the company. Under Oskar Wälterlin from 1938 it became the most important free German-language stage; Brecht's Mother Courage and Her Children (1941), Dürrenmatt's The Visit (1956) and Frisch's The Fire Raisers (1958) had their premieres here. The Pfauen auditorium, with its proscenium stage, seats 750, alongside the studio stage Kammer and, since 2000, three stages in the Schiffbau in Zurich West. In 2002 and 2003 the magazine Theater heute named it Theatre of the Year under Christoph Marthaler.