Ernst Busch Academy of Dramatic Arts

The Ernst Busch Academy of Dramatic Arts (Hochschule für Schauspielkunst „Ernst Busch“, HFS), based in the Niederschöneweide district of Berlin, Germany, was founded in 1951 as the National Theatre School in Berlin with the status of college. In 1981 it was granted university status, and a year later was renamed after the singer and East German actor Ernst Busch.

The roots of the university go back to the Max Reinhardt drama school established in 1905 at the Deutsches Theater in Berlin. As was usual at that time, it was a private institution. The first training facility was the ground floor of the Palais Wesendonkschen, In den Zelten 21, where Reinhardt lived, near the Reichstag.

Reinhardt emigrated in 1933 and the Nazis usurped the theatre along with the acting school. The director of the Deutsches Theater, Heinz Hilpert, secured subsidies for the first time in the school's history, but struggled to keep the school open. His work has been considered comparable to that of Gustaf Gründgens. After 1945, Boleslaw Barlog was rebuilding the theater world in West Berlin; Gustav von Wangenheim, returned from exile in Russia, became director of the Deutsches Theater, shortly followed by Wolfgang Langhoff who held the position for many years. Teaching was resumed from July 1946, subsidized by the city of Berlin. After the currency reform of 1948, the school used rooms of the destroyed Schiller Theater in the west of the city.

Berlin's State Drama School was legally and conceptually founded in September 1951 as a public sector body. In a conscious departure from previous practice the somewhat remote training center known as the Old Boat House in Niederschöneweide, in East Berlin, was chosen. The new building was started in 1979 and completed in 1981. During this time the school was in a school building in Marzahn. Major teachers were Rudolf Penka and Kurt Veth (both directors of the school), Wolfgang Engel, Thomas Langhoff, Ursula Karusseit, Hans-Georg Simmgen, Jutta Hoffmann; others included dance teacher Hilde Buchenwald and, as a speech trainer, the professional poet Karl Mickel. In East Germany, the school was considered a hotbed of talent.

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