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53-661: In 1966, a children's theatre was formed at the Berlin Reichskabarett , "a student group that created programs and satirical sketches interspersed with topical songs". Volker Ludwig  [ de ] , who would go on to serve as the GRIPS-Theatre's artistic director for nearly four decades, was one of the authors and co-founders of the group, which defined itself as part of the Außerparlamentarische Opposition (German for extra-parliamentary opposition),

106-417: A girl protagonist , named Millipilli, who travels to a far-away island to save Santa Claus 's tree, which wilts away after being neglected by the adults. In 1969, the group agreed to develop children's plays that would include more elements of social critique . This resulted in the first sociocritical children's play, titled "Stokkerlok und Millipilli ", also written by Ludwig and Hachfeld. The play follows

159-677: A 1685 map. The name Churfürsten Damm was first mentioned between 1767 and 1787. From 1875 the former bridlepath was embellished as a boulevard with a breadth of 53 m (174 ft) on the personal initiative of chancellor Otto von Bismarck , who also proposed the building of the Grunewald mansions colony at its western end. In 1882, Ernst Werner von Siemens presented his Elektromote trolley bus concept at an experimental track near Halensee station. The nearby Lunapark opened in 1909, then Europe's largest amusement park , modelled on Coney Island , where boxer Max Schmeling won his first title of

212-466: A Christian Democrat, [Richard von] Weizsäcker , was elected mayor. He was extremely embarrassed by it all. 'Nobody will outshine us in terms of liberality,' he had someone communicate to me. And then the whole spook was over." The attacks had the opposite effect to the intended and helped raise awareness of the GRIPS-Theatre, whose shows were sold out almost every night. In 1981, the GRIPS' youth play "Everything

265-602: A German Lightheavyweight Champion in 1926. After a long period of decline the park was finally closed in 1933. Large parts are today covered by the Stadtautobahn. In 1913 the new Marmorhaus cinema opened. A number of major film premieres were held here during the silent era . Especially during the " Golden Twenties " the Kurfürstendamm area of the "New West" was a centre of leisure and nightlife in Berlin, an era that ended with

318-503: A cameo appearance in the 1988 film version film version  [ de ] of the musical. For years, Linie 1 was the most-played German production and it remains the second-most successful musical after Bertolt Brecht 's Threepenny Opera . In 1987, the musical's author Volker Ludwig was awarded the Mülheimer Dramatikerpreis (English: dramatist award of Mülheim), considered Germany's leading theatre award. To this day,

371-457: A large city, hope and adaptation, courage and self-deceit, to laugh and cry at, to dream, and to think about oneself." As its other plays, Linie 1 includes sociocritical elements, but it also serves as an amusing portrait of Berlin's society before the fall of the Berlin Wall . The success of Linie 1 also had its drawbacks. Due to the production's considerable costs, ticket sales no longer covered

424-494: A little boy named Maximilian who blackmails his family and surroundings into child-friendly behaviour with an ear-piercing whistle. " Stokkerlok und Millipilli" is considered the GRIPS-Theatre's first play and became a great success. Theatres across Germany staged performances of the play, which was also adapted by theatres in other countries. In 1969, it was awarded the Brother Grimm Award  [ de ] , conferred by

477-596: A political protest movement in West Germany during the latter half of the 1960s and early 1970s, which formed a central part of the German student movement . In the summer of 1966, the group began performing plays for children on weekends, starting with the satirically reworked fairy tale The Devil with the Three Golden Hairs . Gradually, the group performed more and more plays for children to provide an alternative to

530-558: A portion of it. A few years later, the Kurfürstendamm became the site of protests and major demonstrations by the German student movement . On 11 April 1968, spokesman Rudi Dutschke was shot in the head while leaving the office of the Sozialistischer Deutscher Studentenbund on Kurfürstendamm No. 140. After German reunification the Kurfürstendamm had to compete with central places like Potsdamer Platz , Friedrichstraße , and Alexanderplatz , which led to

583-650: A rally against the American War in Vietnam. The play follows their political development amidst the German student movement and the German Autumn , a set of terror events in West Germany in late 1977. The play was continuously updated to incorporate more recent historic events, including the German reunification . Since autumn 2007, however, the repertoire reverted to the play's original version. In 1985, Volker Ludwig wrote

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636-486: A sadistic attack, in "the most brutal anti-Jewish manifestation since Hitler's rise to power," with Hitler 's instigation, and Nazi managed press blaming the victims. Varian Fry , an American journalist and future Righteous Among the Nations , witnessed the brutality and was inspired to become an "ardent anti-Nazi." The shops and businesses owned by Jewish tradespeople became the target of several pogroms, culminating in

689-498: A smear campaign against their theatre. The Berlin chapter of the Christian Democrat Party , then in opposition, labelled the actors as communists who would corrupt children and claimed that the youth play's "unwholesome language" incited young people to acts of violence. In May 1975, the town councillor for youth in Berlin's Steglitz district, Klaus Dieter Friedrich, banned a guest performance of Mensch Mädchen! not because of

742-447: Is Plastic" ( Alles Plastik ) reignited the debate about the theatre as the play, which dealt with the apathy and no-future mentality of teenagers, included references to the struggle of the squatters in Berlin in 1981. In 1980, the GRIPS presented a play for adults. A Story of the Left ( Eine linke Geschichte ), performed at the GRIPS to this day, deals with three students who meet in 1966 at

795-537: Is forbidden to dream of Vilnius"), Windhoek ("Friends 4Eva") and Aden ("Mak Nazl"), the original play was adapted to the respective cities and retained the original music (expect for Hong Kong). In Seoul Line 1  [ kr ] , a young Chinese Korean woman from Yanbian comes to Seoul, travelling back and forth between the Seoul Station and the Cheongnyangni 588 red light district. The Nazi widows of

848-417: Is fun. Volker Ludwig is quoted as saying, "[Grips is] not to give up, always have faith in that last grain of common sense, and – hardest of all – try and develop some kind of positive outlook." The graphic designer and children's book author Jürgen Spohn  [ de ] designed the matching logo: a black face with a big nose, peeking out from inside a cardboard box bearing the word GRIPS. In 1974,

901-596: Is one of the most famous avenues in Berlin . The street takes its name from the former Kurfürsten ( prince-electors ) of Brandenburg . The broad, long boulevard can be considered the Champs-Élysées of Berlin and is lined with shops, houses, hotels and restaurants. In particular, many fashion designers have their shops there, as well as several car manufacturers' show rooms. The avenue includes four lines of plane trees and runs for 3.5 km (2.2 mi) through

954-412: The Berlin government . The then relatively new concept of a modern children's theatre with a sociocritical background wasn't welcomed by everyone, particularly not by conservative circles. The theatre faced significant criticism for its child protagonists who were often barefaced and disrespectful towards adults. However, an emphasis on children's emancipation and child rights was entirely intended by

1007-541: The Great Depression and the Nazi Machtergreifung in 1933. On Sep 12, 1931, radical antisemite, Nazi Wolf-Heinrich Graf von Helldorff organizes a riot, about a thousand men appear from within the crowd on the streets and start attacking people who they think are Jewish, scream at them and then they beat them, scream anti-Jewish threats at them. On July 15, 1935, about 200 Nazi Storm Troopers went on

1060-757: The Swissôtel Berlin can be found at the same junction. One block farther, near Uhlandstraße U-Bahn station , is the Hotel Bristol Berlin (formerly Kempinski ) hotel as well as the Theater am Kurfürstendamm , at the site of a former exhibition hall of the Berlin Secession art association. At Adenauerplatz the boulevard reaches the district of Wilmersdorf , where it passes the Schaubühne theatre on Lehniner Platz . The more sober western or "upper" end of

1113-520: The article wizard to submit a draft for review, or request a new article . Search for " Volker Ludwig " in existing articles. Look for pages within Misplaced Pages that link to this title . Other reasons this message may be displayed: If a page was recently created here, it may not be visible yet because of a delay in updating the database; wait a few minutes or try the purge function . Titles on Misplaced Pages are case sensitive except for

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1166-506: The " Reichskristallnacht " of 9 November 1938. In World War II the boulevard suffered severe damage from air raids and the Battle of Berlin . Nevertheless, after the war rebuilding started quickly, and when Berlin was separated into East and West Berlin , the Kurfürstendamm became the leading commercial street of West Berlin in its Wirtschaftswunder days. For that reason, too, John F. Kennedy 's tour of West Berlin on June 26, 1963, included

1219-618: The Brandenburg margraves to reach the Grunewald hunting lodge, which was erected about 1542 at the behest of the Hohenzollern elector Joachim II Hector . Although the exact date of the building is unknown, an unnamed causeway leading from the Stadtschloss through the swampy area between the settlements of Charlottenburg (then called Lietzow ) and Wilmersdorf to Grunewald is already depicted in

1272-552: The Fritz Kirchhoff School, the oldest state-recognized private drama school in Berlin. Axel Kottmann, George Kranz and Matthias Witting, who joined the ensemble between 1978 and 1986, formed the band Zeitgeist from 1980 to 1983. In addition, Kranz is a successful solo musician, best known for his song Din Daa Daa (Trommeltanz). In 1986, the year Line 1 premiered, Thomas Keller, Michael Brandt and Richard Wester joined. Together,

1325-532: The GRIPS owns a so-called 'studio and rehearsal stage' in addition to the theatre at Altonaer Straße. Until 2009, smaller productions were staged at the Schiller-Theater Werkstatt (workshop), but since then, the GRIPS Podewil at Klosterstraße . Usually, the GRIPS releases at least four new plays and stages 300 performances per year. When Volker Ludwig left his post as the GRIPS' artistic director at

1378-715: The GRIPS, translated his song Morning Dew into German, visited South Korea in 2004, and gave it to him as a gift. The title is Morgentau . In the Namibian version, a German girl arrives in Windhoek searching for a Namibian musician she met while he was playing in Germany. She travels all over Namibia with various typical means of transport, such as minibus taxis and a donkey cart. The Wilmersdorf widows in this version are widows of former Boers still dreaming of white supremacy in Africa. Since 1992,

1431-557: The GRIPS-Theatre's cast have gone on to successful careers in TV and film, including Dieter Landuris, Petra Zieser, Heinz Hoenig , Axel Prahl, Julia Blankenburg, Nadine Warmuth, and Mathias Schlung. Veteran ensemble members Dietrich Lehmann  [ de ] and Thomas Ahrens have been with the GRIPS since 1969 and 1975, respectively. Lehmann accomplished the outstanding achievement of participating in every performance of Line 1 since its premiere in 1986. Since 1981, Lehmann also serves as head of

1484-410: The GRIPS-Theatre. The story follows a young woman who runs away from her provincial hometown and ends up at Berlin's notorious Zoo station , searching for a rock musician who got her pregnant on a one-night stand . She gets stuck in underground line 1 and encounters a kaleidoscope of urban characters and their fates. According to the GRIPS, "it's a show, a drama, a musical about living and surviving in

1537-640: The Kurfürstendamm is marked by the Berlin-Halensee railway station on the Ringbahn line and the junction with the Bundesautobahn 100 ( Stadtring ) at the Rathenauplatz  [ de ] roundabout, featuring the long-disputed 1987 "Beton Cadillacs" sculpture by Wolf Vostell . Unlike the adjacent streets, the Kurfürstendamm developed out of a historic corduroy road ( German : Damm ) laid out by

1590-578: The actors split from the troupe and formed the children's theatre Theater Rote Grütze  [ de ] to develop a sex education play for children. The premiere of "You don't talk about that!!! A play for sexual education" ( Darüber spricht man nicht!!! Ein Spiel zur Sexualerziehung ) in 1973 created public uproar. The actors used sexual taboo words and taught "children not to be ashamed of their bodies and their bodily functions ." Whereas in West Berlin ,

1643-404: The authors. The children's theatre's ensemble cast frequently interviewed the children and youths attending their performances to learn what issues were on their minds. A recurring topic were gender roles , including the then-typical path of girls becoming housewives instead of pursuing a career, and in the 1970s, the troupe developed more and more plays dealing with that subject. In 1971, some of

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1696-499: The beginning of 1935 intense anti Jewish incitement had newly surfaced among party radicals.... Jochen Klepper, a deeply religious Protestant writer whose wife was Jewish, wrote in his diary on July 13: "Anti-Semitic excesses on the Kurfürstendamm.... The cleansing of Berlin of Jews threateningly announced." A week later Klepper again wrote of what had happened on the Kurfürstendamm: Jewish women had been struck in

1749-434: The boots and trousers worn by many, it was clear that they were Nazi Storm Troopers. Howling down their victims with cries of "Out with Jews!" and "Destruction to Jews!", the rowdies freely vented their passion against an unsuspecting defenseless populace. Including some foreigners. Frantic and hurried phone calls made to the police by café proprietors had very little effect because the police appeared most reluctant to prevent

1802-633: The city. It branches off from the Breitscheidplatz , where the ruins of the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church stand, and leads southwestward up to the district of Grunewald . At the junction with Joachimstaler Straße it passes the Café Kranzler , successor of the Café des Westens , a famous venue for artists and bohémiens of the pre–World War I era. The Kurfürstendamm U-Bahn station and

1855-474: The closing of numerous cafés and cinemas. It retained the character of a flâneur and upscale shopping street as the western continuation of the Tauentzienstraße with its large department stores. The globally unique international art project United Buddy Bears was presented in Berlin on the Kurfürstendamm during the summer of 2011. Dr. Lindsay MacNeill: About a thousand men basically appear from within

1908-788: The crowd on the streets and start attacking people.  Erin Harper: That’s Dr. Lindsay MacNeill, a historian at the Museum. Dr. Lindsay MacNeill: Officers hesitated to make arrests on Kurfürstendamm in 1935 because they had a new boss: Wolf-Heinrich von Helldorf. In his prior role as leader of the Berlin SA, Helldorf had instigated in September 1931 the very same kind of street violence that took place on Kurfürstendamm in July 1935. In 1931, he had faced criminal charges for his actions. From

1961-539: The end of the 2011/2012 season, he appointed Stefan Fischer-Fels as his successor who had previously worked at the Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus . Due to differences in opinions, Ludwig and Fischer-Fels agreed on a premature termination of the contract in 2015, which saw Fischer-Fels returning to the Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus. He was succeeded by in-house theatre pedagogue Philipp Harpain. Until

2014-483: The end of the 2016/2017 season, Ludwig remained in his role as the GRIPS' managing director before turning this post over to Harpain, too, on his 80th birthday. At his departure, author and theatre critic Rüdiger Schaper paid tribute to Ludwig. "Berlin has made several contributions to world theatre. Volker Ludwig and the Grips belong into that category. […] A miracle. What luck to have been able to witness it." Several of

2067-540: The face; Jewish men had behaved courageously. "Nobody came to their help, because everyone is afraid of being arrested." [Citing, Klepper,  Unter dem Schatten deiner Fluegel: Aus den Tagebuechern der Jahre 1932-1942 , (Stuttgart, 1983), p.269]. On the night of July 15, 1935, about 200 German toughs invaded Berlin's fashionable Kurfürstendamm, seizing, chasing and savagely beating men and women who looked Jewish to them or displeased them by attitude and appearance. The young ruffians were clad in civilian clothes, but from

2120-465: The fairy tale plays that were a staple of children's theatre at the time. Instead, the group developed plays written expressly for children and dealing with issues faced by children, which fairy tale plays addressed only insufficiently or not at all. In 1968, Volker Ludwig and his brother, the caricaturist Rainer Hachfeld  [ de ] , wrote the first of these plays, titled "The Journey to Pitschepatsch" ( Die Reise nach Pitschepatsch ). It features

2173-530: The first character; please check alternative capitalizations and consider adding a redirect here to the correct title. If the page has been deleted, check the deletion log , and see Why was the page I created deleted? Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volker_Ludwig " Kurf%C3%BCrstendamm The Kurfürstendamm ( German pronunciation: [ˌkuːɐ̯fʏʁstn̩ˈdam] ; colloquially Ku'damm , [ˈkuːdam] ; English: Prince Elector Embankment )

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2226-507: The first row are at the same level as the actors. The theatre has a capacity of 360-400 people. The entrance is adorned with a mosaic of caricatures by Rainer Hachfeld. As the building is integrated into the U-Bahn station Hansaplatz, theatregoers can easily reach the GRIPS by public transport . While the troupe had rather focused on children's plays at first, it subsequently aimed to include problems that teenagers face into its concept. Following

2279-498: The municipal government recommended it for elementary school classes despite harsh criticism from conservatives, "Bavarian teachers were not allowed to attend the play with their children". In 1972, the children's theatre's move into the Forum Theatre at Kurfürstendamm triggered a name change, with the troupe choosing the name Grips , a colloquial German term describing one's ability to understand quickly, to symbolise that thinking

2332-400: The musical Line 1 ( Linie 1 ). The title refers to Berlin's subway line U1 . The music was written by German musician and composer Birger Heymann  [ de ] , a longtime friend of Ludwig, and the rock band No Ticket (Thomas Keller, George Kranz , Axel Kottmann, Michael Brandt, Richard Wester, Matthias Witting). The musical premiered on 30 April 1986 and became the biggest success of

2385-481: The musical has been performed at over 150 German-language theatres and adapted by theatres in 15 countries, including Brazil , Canada , Denmark , Finland , Greece , Italy , India , Lithuania , Namibia , the Netherlands , Russia , South Korea , Spain , Sweden and Yemen . In Barcelona ("Linea Roja"), Hong Kong ("Island Line"), Kolkata ("Chord Line"), Seoul ("Seoul Linie 1"), Vilnius ("Rule No. 1: It

2438-412: The new location on 30 September 1974. The premises were remodelled in accordance with the vision of the troupe. As it had been at the Forum Theatre, the stage was surrounded by benches, placing the actors in the middle of their audience. To this day, it remains possible to place the audience on all four sides of the stage, although one side is usually used as backdrop. As the stage isn't raised, visitors in

2491-509: The original play become widows of former military big shots. This Korean version, adapted by Kim Min-ki , became even more successful than the original in Berlin. While the GRIPS put on its 1,800th performance of Linie 1 in October 2017, Seoul Line 1 was performed over 4,000 times during the 13 years the musical belonged to the Hakchon Theatre's repertoire. After learning about this, members of

2544-550: The play itself but because "members of the GRIPS Theatre moved in the city's communist circles". Journalists of the powerful Springer publishing house , which controls the largest share of the German market for daily newspapers , also attacked the theatre. The Berliner Morgenpost wrote that GRIPS' plays were rearing "a load of political psychopaths, poor devils who would one day be their own destruction, having destroyed other things on

2597-1241: The six musicians participated in composing and arranging the music of the musical, which they performed as rock band No Ticket. All but Wester are performing at the GRIPS to this day. 52°31′7″N 13°20′31″E  /  52.51861°N 13.34194°E  / 52.51861; 13.34194 Volker Ludwig Look for Volker Ludwig on one of Misplaced Pages's sister projects : [REDACTED] Wiktionary (dictionary) [REDACTED] Wikibooks (textbooks) [REDACTED] Wikiquote (quotations) [REDACTED] Wikisource (library) [REDACTED] Wikiversity (learning resources) [REDACTED] Commons (media) [REDACTED] Wikivoyage (travel guide) [REDACTED] Wikinews (news source) [REDACTED] Wikidata (linked database) [REDACTED] Wikispecies (species directory) Misplaced Pages does not have an article with this exact name. Please search for Volker Ludwig in Misplaced Pages to check for alternative titles or spellings. You need to log in or create an account and be autoconfirmed to create new articles. Alternatively, you can use

2650-430: The success of "Gosh, Girl!" ( Mensch Mädchen! ), a children's play about gender roles, the GRIPS premiered its first youth play in the autumn of 1975. Titled "That's incredible!" ( Das hältste ja im Kopf nicht aus ), it dealt with problems faced by general school students. Although its first youth play earned the troupe its next Brother Grimm Award, 1975 also marked the start of a public political debate about its plays and

2703-626: The theatre moved to its current location at Hansaplatz in the southern part of the Hansaviertel, a post-war modernist housing development . The building was designed by German architects Ernst Zinsser and Hansrudi Plarre as part of the Interbau housing development, constructed for the International Architecture Exhibition in 1957. Before the GRIPS moved in, the venue housed the "Bellevue" cinema. The GRIPS opened first opened at

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2756-631: The theatre's expenses. However, after Volker Ludwig mentioned on a talk show that the theatre would have to close without additional support, the government eventually increased its subsidies. Initially, Germany's main stages ignored Linie 1, but when the Stuttgart State Theatre successfully ran the musical, other theatres followed suit. Linie 1 became known nationwide after several of its songs were performed on satirical TV show Scheibenwischer (windshield wipers). The show's creator, German satirist , actor and author Dieter Hildebrandt , later had

2809-528: The way". Ludwig recalled the time in an interview with Berlin daily Der Tagesspiegel . "Starting in 1975, the Christian Democrats ran an anti-GRIPS campaign. For three years, they forced its parliamentary group to vote in favour of withholding funds from Grips and not allowing school classes to visit us. At the time, I was labelled Stalinist, Maoist and child abuser. The Springer press wrote I destroyed children's souls. That continued until in 1981, when

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