Vera Oelschlegel

Vera Oelschlegel
Vera Oelschlegel (18 May 1980)
Born	Vera Franziska Oelschlegel (1938-07-05) 5 July 1938 (age 78) Leipzig, Germany
Occupation	Chansonier Actress Theatre Director Drama director
Spouse(s)	1. Günther Rücker (1924-2008) 2. Hermann Kant 3. Konrad Naumann (1928-1992)
Children	Nina Rücker (journalist and photographer)
Parent(s)	Gottfried Oelschlegel (1910–1945) Ruth Oelschlegel (born Ruth Lauterbach, 1914–2014)

Vera Oelschlegel (born 5 July 1938) has worked as a German singer, actress, artistic director, drama director and professor of drama at the Ernst Busch Academy of Dramatic Arts. She was a celebrity in the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) before 1989. After that, from 1990 till 2013, she headed up the Theater des Ostens () touring theatre company.

Vera Franziska Oelschlegel was born in Leipzig. Her mother, Ruth Oelschlegel (born Ruth Lauterbach, 1914–2014), was trained as a journalist. Her father, the businessman Gottfried Oelschlegel (1910-1945), would be killed in World War II. She attended the prestigious St. Thomas School in Leipzig, passing her school final exams (Abitur) in 1956. After that she studied between 1956 and 1959 at the acting faculty of the Babelsberg Film Academy (), from which she emerged with a degree, and where she also served as the secretary for the faculty's Free German Youth section.

Between 1959 and 1961 she worked at the Putbus Theatre on the Island of Rügen on the country's north-east coast. Her first radio experience had involved women's broadcasts with Radio Leipzig, and in 1961 she became a member of the DFF ensemble, remaining in one form or another a member of the state television broadcaster's drama team between 1961 and 1974. In 1966 she was a founding member of "Ensemble 66". In 1976, she was a co-founder of the Palace Theatre (Theater im Palast / TiP) in Berlin, an experimental theatre project that attracted controversy in the East German establishment. Oelschlegel served as the theatre's intendant from 1976 till 1990. During the 1980s she worked with Corinna Harfouch as her "master student" at the TiP. Oelschlegel was also producing plays; she staged Dürrenmatt's Der Meteor () and Shakespeare's Merry Wives of Windsor and King John, along with works by Peter Hacks and Ulrich Plenzdorf.