Heyme, Hansgünther

(1935- )

   Director. Heyme began his professional theater career in the mid-1950s with Erwin Piscator in Mannheim while still a student in nearby Heidelberg. Thereafter he worked as Piscator's assistant on several productions in numerous locales. In 1963 Heyme became chief director at the Hessian State Theater in Wiesbaden; his production there of Marat/Sade earned him an invitation to the Berliner Theatertreffen in 1965 and established him as one of West Germany's most important new directors. He had four other productions invited to the Theatertreffen, most of them originating at the Württemberg State Theater in Stuttgart (the one exception was his Cologne production of Friedrich Hebbel's Maria Magdalena in 1973). From 1968 to 1979 Heyme was director of the Cologne City Theaters; he later held similar posts in Bremen, Stuttgart, and Essen. From 1990 to 2003 he was director of the Ruhr Festival in Recklinghausen. Though largely known for productions by contemporary playwrights, Heyme worked extensively with translator and philologist Wolfgang Schadewaldt (1900-1974) on new translations of Greek tragedies, staging a series of them during the late 1970s and early 1980s.