Volkstheater Frankfurt
The Volkstheater Frankfurt – Liesel Christ was founded in 1971 in Frankfurt by . In addition to dialectal plays in and classical entertainment plays, it also performed adaptations of classical dramas, contemporary plays and rediscoveries of older stage literature. History. Under the direction of its founder and , the theatre established itself as an important cultural institution in Hessen. Twenty productions alone were recorded for television, including "" and "Rendezvous im Palmengarten" (by ), "The Imaginary Invalid" (by Molière, with Heinz Schenk), "Die fünf Frankfurter" (by Carl Rössler, the last appearance of Liesel Christ) and "Der alte " (by Carl Malß, the inventor  of the Jumping jack). Since the death of its founder in 1996, it has been under the direction of Gisela Dahlem-Christ (artistic director). Until 2007, Wolfgang Kaus was the artistic director. Since 2010, the "Tatort" director Sylvia Hoffman was the artistic director of the theatre. Five to six plays were staged annually. About 80,000 visitors came to the approximately 250 performances. In 2011, the Volkstheater celebrated its 40th anniversary. By then, a good 10,000 performances had been staged and over 3.5 million visitors had come to the Volkstheater. Since the 1970s, the Volkstheater has played in the "Cantatesaal" next  to the Goethe House in . In summer, open-air plays were held in the courtyard of the Dominican Monastery from 1975 to 2007. Until the , numerous plays were also performed outdoors in the in front of the Frankfurt Cathedral, for example the "Urfaust" and "Der hessische Jedermann". In addition, there were numerous guest performances in Hesse as well as several guest performance tours to Israel. For the 2009/2010 season, it was planned to give the artistic direction of the Volkstheater. However, he cancelled because "after careful examination of the economic situation of the theatre and its organisational structure" it turned  out "that both are ailing." As a result, Quast founded the "Fliegende Volksbühne Frankfurt". At a press conference on 20 April 2012, it was announced that the Volkstheater would close at the end of the 2012/13 season, as the theatre building would be demolished and a move with new facilities would not be financially viable. The last curtain with the play "La Cage aux Folles" fell on 25 May 2013. On 24 February 2013, 17 employees of the Volkstheater Frankfurt founded the Volkstheater Hessen association in the Cantatesaal in order to continue the aims and purpose of the Frankfurt Volkstheater  even without a permanent venue and subsidies. The new association campaigned for the preservation of the Cantate Hall and collected signatures to this end. In 2013, the city of Frankfurt decided to restore the Cantatesaal as part of the construction of the . Since the beginning of 2020, it has served as the venue for the "Fliegenden Volksbühne".