Exhibition Opening: Leopold Jessner’s Staging Books from the Thalia Theater
Foto: SUB Hamburg
When: Tue, 24.09.2024 6:00 PM until 8:00 PM
Where: Von-Melle-Park 3, 20146 Hamburg
"Die Temperamente des Theaters"
Leopold Jessner’s Staging Books from the Thalia Theater
Exhibition at the Hamburg State and University Library Carl von Ossietzky
25 September – 27 October 2024, exhibition room
Leopold Jessner (1878–1945), the Weimar Republic’s most influential theatre director, was a precursor to today’s theatre aesthetics. The director’s books for the legendary work he did in Berlin were probably lost in exile. This makes the written artefacts from his time as a young director at Hamburg’s Thalia Theater (1904–1915) all the more important. The Cluster of Excellence ‘Understanding Written Artefacts’ and the Hamburg State and University Library are presenting director’s books, stage manager’s books, prompt books, and scripts from the Hamburg Theatre Collection in cooperation with the Thalia Theater, placing them in the context of everyday theatre operations. These staging books, with their handwritten entries made by various users, provide a fascinating glimpse into the processes that took place behind the scenes. In addition, they reveal an unknown side to Jessner: an important director of modernist theatre who not only developed what would become his later style in Hamburg but also devoted himself with great earnestness to the light-hearted genres that were prevalent at the time.
Exhibition room, ground floor
Open:
25 September – 27 October 2024
Mon–Fri, 9:00 am – 12 am, Sat and Sun 10:00 am – 12:00 am
Free admission
Opening: 24 September 2024, 6:00 pm
Professor Dr Robert Zepf (Director SUB): welcome address
Words of welcome from Professor Dr Silke Segler-Meßner (Dean of the Faculty of Humanities), Professor Dr Konrad Hirschler (Spokesperson of the UWA Cluster of Excellence), and from the Thalia Theater
Anna Sophie Felser and Professor Dr Martin Schäfer (curators): introductory talk, ‘Leopold Jessner in Hamburg: Between Comedy and Modernity’
Followed by a reception and a guided tour of the exhibition
Please register at pr@sub.uni-hamburg.de