Kurt Hirschfeld (1902–1962) Darmstadt, c. 1930. Leo Baeck Institute, Else Blum Collection, AR 10303.
Kurt Hirschfeld (1902–1964) Darmstadt, c. 1930. Leo Baeck Institute, Else Blum Collection, AR 10303.

Kurt Hirschfeld built the Schauspielhaus Zurich into the last bastion of free German theater in the 30s, premiered Brecht’s Mother Courage during WWII, and brought Swiss literary Giants Max Frisch and Friedrich Dürrenmatt to the attention of a broader audience. The German-Jewish Émigré Kurt Hirschfeld shaped the Swiss theater landscape and global dramatic culture like few others. On March 9, 2015 a panel of distinguished scholars and critics will discuss Hirschfeld’s career and legacy in the first international Hirschfeld conference, hosted at the Schauspielhaus. The conference will be launched with a dramatic reading, (tickets) in which the actors Stefan Kurt (Berliner Ensemble) and Friederike Wagner (Schauspielhaus Zurich) will illuminate Hirschfeld’s extraordinary life by reading selected letters from his papers, which are preserved in the archives of Leo Baeck Institute, New York.

International Conference and
Dramatic Reading of Kurt Hirschfeld’s Letters

March 8 – 9, 2015

Schauspielhaus Zürich