Kiel

   The port city of Kiel, capital of Schleswig-Holstein, has a recorded history of theater performances dating to 1638, when an English troupe played the city. Thereafter Dutch, Danish, and additional English troupes followed, performing in the city hall. In 1677 the city's municipal auditorium was converted into a opera house, and in 1738 Caroline Neuber and her troupe played there. Kiel became a destination for most of the major troupes after the Neuberin's successful sojourn, even after the city came under Danish rule in 1773. Abel Seyler opened a German-language court theater in 1787, but it closed in 1806 and German theater in Kiel then became a rarity. The opera house was razed in 1840 and in its place the Kiel city theater arose under the leadership of Count Carl Friedrich von HahnNeuhaus. Its staple fare was opera, though a season of German-language theater was annually on offer. In 1907 the city built a completely new and modern facility, and in 1919 Kiel offered Carl Zuckmayer his first job after World War I. He staged a particularly bawdy production of Terence's The Eunuch, featuring abundant female nudity. He was fired soon thereafter, prompting him to pursue a career as a playwright rather than a director. The theater was destroyed in World War II, but citizens erected a new one in 1953, and it still stands.