Deutsches Theater

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Deutsches Theater (doi´chəs tāä´tər), German private theater organization founded in 1883. Under its first director, Adolph L'Arronge, the Deutsches merged with the Freie Bühne (Otto Brahm, director) and in 1884 built its own house in Berlin. Plays by Sophocles, Calderón, Molière, Shakespeare, and other classical writers were mounted. During Brahm's directorship modern works by Ibsen and Hauptmann were produced. Max Reinhardt, who succeeded Brahm, won renown as a theatrical innovator. The theater collapsed but was revived after World War I and survived World War II.

See biography of Otto Brahm by M. Newmark (1937); O. M. Sayler, ed., Max Reinhardt and his Theatre (tr. 1924, repr. 1968).

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