• Cambridge Scholars Publishing

    "Controversies in Medicine and Neuroscience: Through the Prism of History, Neurobiology, and Bioethics (2023) is well worth reading and studying. It should be standard on all doctor’s bookshelves and among the interested laymen."

    - Russell L. Blaylock, President of Theoretical Neuroscience Research

Heinz-Uwe Haus and Brecht in the USA: Directing and Training Experiences

Heinz-Uwe Haus was the first renowned director from the German Democratic Republic to (be allowed to) direct in the USA. This book presents relevant material written in relation to his productions, specifically of Bertolt Brecht’s plays. This includes Haus’s notes for his casts, announcements of the productions in the media, newspaper reviews and academic articles about the productions, conference contributions, and reflections by cast members (both professional actors and university faculty) and designers (set, costume, light, music). The material on the productions is then discussed in the contexts of approaches to directing, actor training, the academic debate of Brecht in the USA, and historical and biographical dimensions. A conversation with Haus as the final chapter of the book further contextualises the material brought together here.


Heinz-Uwe Haus is an internationally renowned director and is considered one of the world’s leading authorities on Bertolt Brecht. Educated and trained in Germany at the Film Academy Potsdam-Babelsberg and the Humboldt-Universität in Berlin, he began his long artistic and academic career as director at the Deutsches Theatre Berlin, and as founding member of the East German Directing Institute and Head of its Directing Department. In addition to his work in Germany, he has directed for the National Theatres of Greece, Cyprus, and Turkey, and worked with companies from Chile, Finland, Italy, South Korea, Canada, and the United States. His productions have appeared at various festivals throughout Europe. Haus has been a guest professor at more than a dozen North American universities, and has given more than 500 lectures and workshops worldwide. In addition to publishing in his field, he writes about intercultural and political topics in German, English and Greek media. His literary texts and poetry, as well as his work as a painter (partly under his pseudonym Jean Bodin) have only recently been made known to a wider international audience.

Daniel Meyer-Dinkgräfe studied English and Philosophy at the Universität Düsseldorf, Germany. In 1994, he obtained his PhD from the University of London, UK, before going on to serve as Lecturer and Senior Lecturer in the Department of Theatre, Film and Television Studies at the University of Wales Aberystwyth. From 2007 until 2017, he worked as Professor of Drama at the Lincoln School of Performing Arts at the University of Lincoln, UK. Since August 2019, he has been artistic director of piccolo teatro Haventheater Bremerhaven, Germany.

“This collection is of enormous value to playwrights, designers, actors and directors; to scholars and students of theatre and performing arts; and to the general theatre-going public, who will find material to increase their perception and their appreciation of a specific way of theatre making. Haus’ theatre tries to be a true public forum for a democratically mature audience, a theatre of contradictions, as has been the theatre of the Greek antiquity, Shakespeare’s Globe and, last but not least, Brecht’s Berliner Ensemble. […] The goal of the book, to reveal both the development of Haus’ theatrical and cultural positions as well as their evolution over time – before and after the fall of the Berlin wall – in response to changes in social/political context, aesthetic theories, and critical methodologies, has been clearly and well achieved.”
Afir Stojanova
Theodore Grammatas, March 2020

Buy This Book

ISBN: 1-5275-3764-1

ISBN13: 978-1-5275-3764-4

Release Date: 29th August 2019

Pages: 326

Price: £64.99

-
+