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Director Frank-Patrick Stecker
Photo: Poklekowski / ullstein bild
He was an artist and an idealist: The German director and former theater director Frank-Patrick Steckel is dead; he died on Thursday evening at the age of 80.
The director was born in Berlin in 1943 and is considered a great theater maker. He was awarded the “Authors’ Prize” in 2013 for his Shakespeare translations. Between 1986 and 1995 he was director of the Bochum Schauspielhaus.
“Frank-Patrick Steckel thought of the theater as a political and aesthetic place, uncompromising in its moral convictions and committed to its artistic visions,” said the director of the Bochum Schauspielhaus, Johan Simons. »As such, he is still a role model for the theater generations that came after him and will come after him.«
Career begins with Claus Peymann
Nora Hertlein-Hull, director of the Theatertreffen Berlin, described Steckel as a “great and influential theater man.” Between 1971 and 2000 he was invited to the summit of German-speaking theaters five times with productions.
Steckel studied German and literary studies in Hamburg and two semesters of theater studies in Berlin. The Berlin native began his career as an assistant director to the well-known theater maker Claus Peymann at the studio stage at the University of Hamburg. After positions in Berlin and Bremen, he took over the directorship at the Bochum Schauspielhaus. From 1995 he worked as a freelance director and translator. His daughter Jette Steckel is also a theater director.
ada/dpa