Theater44

Theatre 44 was a private playhouse in Munich. It opened in 1959 under Horst A. Reichel and stayed open for nearly fifty years. Some actors who later became well known began their careers on its stage, including Otto Sander, Heiner Lauterbach, Irmhild Wagner and Margarethe von Trotta. The programme mainly featured plays from the classical modern period and by contemporary writers. In May 2009 the theatre closed its doors for the last time. The house earned two Schwabing Arts Prizes, one for Irmhild Wagner in 1988 and another for the theatre itself in 1999. In 1996 Munich’s mayor Christian Ude presented the theatre with the Munich Medal. Its final production was Sartre’s Huis Clos, the same play that had opened the theatre thirty years earlier. Visitors who remember the theatre recall a small stage in a quiet part of the city. The interior held no more than a hundred seats arranged close to the action. The walls carried posters of past productions and photographs of actors who had once performed there. The atmosphere remained intimate, with every word of the dialogue clearly heard.