Erwin Piscator
Encyclopedia
Greifenstein
Greifenstein is a community in the Lahn-Dill-Kreis in Hesse, Germany. Its administrative seat is Beilstein. Greifenstein covers 67.43 km² on the eastern slope of the Westerwald range...
-Ulm – 30 March 1966 in Starnberg
Starnberg
The city of Starnberg is in Bavaria, Germany, some 30 km south-west of Munich. It lies at the north end of Lake Starnberg, in the heart of the "Five Lakes Country", and serves as capital of the district of Starnberg...
) was a German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
theatre director and producer
Theatrical producer
A theatrical producer is the person ultimately responsible for overseeing all aspects of mounting a theatre production. The independent producer will usually be the originator and finder of the script and starts the whole process...
and, with Bertolt Brecht
Bertolt Brecht
Bertolt Brecht was a German poet, playwright, and theatre director.An influential theatre practitioner of the 20th century, Brecht made equally significant contributions to dramaturgy and theatrical production, the latter particularly through the seismic impact of the tours undertaken by the...
, the foremost exponent of epic theatre
Epic theatre
Epic theatre was a theatrical movement arising in the early to mid-20th century from the theories and practice of a number of theatre practitioners, including Erwin Piscator, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Vsevolod Meyerhold and, most famously, Bertolt Brecht...
, a form that emphasizes the socio-political content of drama, rather than its emotional manipulation
Psychological manipulation
Psychological manipulation is a type of social influence that aims to change the perception or behavior of others through underhanded, deceptive, or even abusive tactics. By advancing the interests of the manipulator, often at the other's expense, such methods could be considered exploitative,...
of the audience or on the production's formal beauty
Beauty
Beauty is a characteristic of a person, animal, place, object, or idea that provides a perceptual experience of pleasure, meaning, or satisfaction. Beauty is studied as part of aesthetics, sociology, social psychology, and culture...
.
Youth and wartime experience
Greifenstein
Greifenstein is a community in the Lahn-Dill-Kreis in Hesse, Germany. Its administrative seat is Beilstein. Greifenstein covers 67.43 km² on the eastern slope of the Westerwald range...
-Ulm to Carl Piscator, a merchant, and Antonia Laparose. His family was descended from Johannes Piscator
Johannes Piscator
Johannes Piscator was a German Reformed theologian, known as a Bible translator and textbook writer.He was a prolific writer, and initially moved around as he held a number of positions...
, a Protestant theologian who produced an important translation of the Bible
Bible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
in 1600. The family moved to Marburg
Marburg
Marburg is a city in the state of Hesse, Germany, on the River Lahn. It is the main town of the Marburg-Biedenkopf district and its population, as of March 2010, was 79,911.- Founding and early history :...
where Piscator attended the Gymnasium Philippinum
Gymnasium Philippinum
Gymnasium Philippinum or Philippinum High School is an almost 500-year-old secondary school in Marburg, Hesse, Germany.- History :The Gymnasium Philippinum was founded in 1527 as a Protestant school based at the same time with the University of Marburg created by Philipp I of Hesse...
. In 1913, he enrolled at Munich University to study German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
, philosophy
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
and art history
Art history
Art history has historically been understood as the academic study of objects of art in their historical development and stylistic contexts, i.e. genre, design, format, and style...
. Piscator also took Arthur Kutscher's famous seminar in theatre history
History of theatre
The history of theatre charts the development of theatre over the past 2,500 years. While performative elements are present in every society, it is customary to acknowledge a distinction between theatre as an art form and entertainment and theatrical or performative elements in other activities...
which Bertolt Brecht
Bertolt Brecht
Bertolt Brecht was a German poet, playwright, and theatre director.An influential theatre practitioner of the 20th century, Brecht made equally significant contributions to dramaturgy and theatrical production, the latter particularly through the seismic impact of the tours undertaken by the...
was also later to attend. He began his acting career in 1914, in small unpaid roles at the Munich Court Theatre, under the directorship of Ernst von Possart
Ernst von Possart
Ernst von Possart was a German actor and theatre director.Possart was born in Berlin and was early an actor at Breslau, Bern, and Hamburg. Connected with the Munich Court Theatre after 1864, he became the oberregisseur in 1875...
. In 1896, Carl Lautenschläger had installed one of the world's first revolving stage
Revolving stage
A revolving stage is a mechanically controlled platform within a theatre that can be rotated in order to speed up the changing of a scene within a show...
s at that theatre.
During the First World War
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
Piscator was drafted
Conscription
Conscription is the compulsory enlistment of people in some sort of national service, most often military service. Conscription dates back to antiquity and continues in some countries to the present day under various names...
into the German army, serving in a front-line
Western Front (World War I)
Following the outbreak of World War I in 1914, the German Army opened the Western Front by first invading Luxembourg and Belgium, then gaining military control of important industrial regions in France. The tide of the advance was dramatically turned with the Battle of the Marne...
infantry
Infantry
Infantrymen are soldiers who are specifically trained for the role of fighting on foot to engage the enemy face to face and have historically borne the brunt of the casualties of combat in wars. As the oldest branch of combat arms, they are the backbone of armies...
unit as a signaller
Signaller
In the armed forces, a signaller or signaleer is a specialist soldier or seaman or airman responsible for military communications. Signallers, aka Combat Signallers or signalmen or women, are commonly employed as radio or telephone operators, relaying messages for field commanders at the front line...
from the spring of 1915. The experience inspired a hatred of militarism
Militarism
Militarism is defined as: the belief or desire of a government or people that a country should maintain a strong military capability and be prepared to use it aggressively to defend or promote national interests....
and war
War
War is a state of organized, armed, and often prolonged conflict carried on between states, nations, or other parties typified by extreme aggression, social disruption, and usually high mortality. War should be understood as an actual, intentional and widespread armed conflict between political...
that lasted for the rest of his life, as well as a few bitter poems, published in 1915 and 1916 in the left-wing Expressionist literary magazine Die Aktion
Die Aktion
Die Aktion was a German literary and political magazine, edited by Franz Pfemfert and published between 1911 and 1932 in Berlin-Wilmersdorf; it promoted literary Expressionism and stood for left-wing policies...
. In summer 1917, having participated in the First Battle of Ypres
First Battle of Ypres
The First Battle of Ypres, also called the First Battle of Flanders , was a First World War battle fought for the strategic town of Ypres in western Belgium...
and been in hospital once, he was assigned to an army theatre unit. In November 1918, when the armistice
Armistice with Germany (Compiègne)
The armistice between the Allies and Germany was an agreement that ended the fighting in the First World War. It was signed in a railway carriage in Compiègne Forest on 11 November 1918 and marked a victory for the Allies and a complete defeat for Germany, although not technically a surrender...
was declared, Piscator gave a speech in Hasselt
Hasselt
Hasselt is a Belgian city and municipality, and capital of the Flemish province of Limburg...
at the first meeting of a revolutionary Soldiers' Council (soviet
Soviet (council)
Soviet was a name used for several Russian political organizations. Examples include the Czar's Council of Ministers, which was called the “Soviet of Ministers”; a workers' local council in late Imperial Russia; and the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union....
).
Early success in the Weimar Republic
In collaboration with the writer Hans Rehfisch, he formed a "proletarian Volksbühne" ("people's stage") in Berlin (a rival to the VolksbühneVolksbühne
The Volksbühne is a theater in Berlin, Germany. Located in Berlin's city center Mitte on Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz in what was the GDR's capital....
) at the Comedy-Theater on Alte Jacobsstrasse, where in 1922–1923 they staged works by Maxim Gorky
Maxim Gorky
Alexei Maximovich Peshkov , primarily known as Maxim Gorky , was a Russian and Soviet author, a founder of the Socialist Realism literary method and a political activist.-Early years:...
, Romain Rolland
Romain Rolland
Romain Rolland was a French dramatist, novelist, essayist, art historian and mystic who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1915.-Biography:...
and Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy
Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy was a Russian writer who primarily wrote novels and short stories. Later in life, he also wrote plays and essays. His two most famous works, the novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina, are acknowledged as two of the greatest novels of all time and a pinnacle of realist...
. As stage director at the Volksbühne
Volksbühne
The Volksbühne is a theater in Berlin, Germany. Located in Berlin's city center Mitte on Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz in what was the GDR's capital....
(1924–1927), and later as managing director at his own theatre (the Piscator-Bühne
Neues Schauspielhaus
The Neues Schauspielhaus on Nollendorfplatz in the Schöneberg district of Berlin was built in 1905 as a theatre and concert hall in the then-fashionable Art Nouveau style...
on Nollendorfplatz
Nollendorfplatz
Nollendorfplatz is a square in the Schöneberg district of Berlin. Colloquially called Nolli it was named in 1864 after the village of Nakléřov , a site of the 1813 Battle of Kulm....
), Piscator produced social and political plays especially suited to his theories. His dramatic aims were utilitarian — to influence voters or clarify left-wing policies. He used mechanized sets, lectures, movies, and mechanical devices that appealed to his audiences. In 1926, his updated production of Friedrich Schiller
Friedrich Schiller
Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller was a German poet, philosopher, historian, and playwright. During the last seventeen years of his life , Schiller struck up a productive, if complicated, friendship with already famous and influential Johann Wolfgang von Goethe...
's The Robbers at the distinguished Preußisches Staatstheater
Konzerthaus Berlin
The Konzerthaus Berlin is a concert hall situated on the Gendarmenmarkt square in the central Mitte district of Berlin housing the German orchestra Konzerthausorchester Berlin...
in Berlin provoked widespread controversy. Piscator cut the text heavily and reinterpreted it as a vehicle for his political beliefs. He presented the protagonist Karl Moor as a substantially self-absorbed insurgent. As Karl's foil, Piscator made the character of Spiegelberg, often presented as a sinister figure, the voice of the working-class revolution. Spiegelberg appeared as a Trotskyist intellectual, slightly reminiscent of Charlie Chaplin
Charlie Chaplin
Sir Charles Spencer "Charlie" Chaplin, KBE was an English comic actor, film director and composer best known for his work during the silent film era. He became the most famous film star in the world before the end of World War I...
with his cane and bowler hat. As he died, the audience heard The Internationale
The Internationale
The Internationale is a famous socialist, communist, social-democratic and anarchist anthem.The Internationale became the anthem of international socialism, and gained particular fame under the Soviet Union from 1922 to 1944, when it was that communist state's de facto central anthem...
sung.
Piscator founded the influential (though short-lived) Piscator-Bühne in Berlin in 1927. In 1928 he produced a notable adaptation of the unfinished episodic comic Czech
Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...
novel
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
The Good Soldier Schweik. The dramaturgical collective that produced this adaptation included Bertolt Brecht Brecht later described it as a "montage
Soviet montage theory
Soviet montage theory is an approach to understanding and creating cinema that relies heavily upon editing...
from the novel". In 1929 Piscator published his own work on the theory of theatre, The Political Theatre. In the preface to its 1963 edition, Piscator wrote that the book was "assembled in hectic sessions during rehearsals for The Merchant of Berlin" by Walter Mehring
Walter Mehring
Walter Mehring was a German author and one of the most prominent satirical authors in the Weimar Republic. He was banned during the Third Reich, and fled the country.-Biographical:...
, which had opened on 6 September 1929 at the second Piscator-Bühne. It was intended to provide "a definitive explanation and elucidation of the basic facts of epic, i.e. political theatre", which at that time "was still meeting with widespread rejection and misapprehension." Three decades later, Piscator felt that:
International work, emigration and late productions in West Germany
Gorky Film Studio
Gorky Film Studio is a film studio in Moscow, Russian Federation. By the end of the Soviet Union, Gorky Film Studio had produced more than 1,000 films...
, the Soviet film company associated with the International Workers' Relief
International Workers Relief
The Workers International Relief — also known as Internationale Arbeiter-Hilfe in German and as Международная рабочая помощь in Russian — was an adjunct of the Communist International initially formed to channel relief from international working class organizations and communist parties to...
Organisation. As John Willett
John Willett
John Willett was a British translator and a scholar who is remembered for translating the work of Bertolt Brecht into English.-Early life:Willett was educated at Winchester and Christ Church, Oxford...
put it, throughout the pre-Hitler years Piscator's "commitment to the Russian Revolution was a decisive factor in all his work." With Hitler's rise to power in 1933, Piscator's stay in the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
became political asylum.In 1937 he married dancer Maria Ley
Maria Ley Piscator
Maria Ley-Piscator is best known as the wife of Erwin Piscator , Germany's famous left-wing theater director. Born on August 1, 1898 in Vienna, Austria-Hungary , Maria Ley sought to create a theatrical career for herself as a dancer in Paris and Berlin...
in Paris. Bertolt Brecht
Bertolt Brecht
Bertolt Brecht was a German poet, playwright, and theatre director.An influential theatre practitioner of the 20th century, Brecht made equally significant contributions to dramaturgy and theatrical production, the latter particularly through the seismic impact of the tours undertaken by the...
was one of the groomsmen.
During his years in Berlin, Piscator had collaborated with Lena Goldschmidt on a stage adaptation of Theodore Dreiser
Theodore Dreiser
Theodore Herman Albert Dreiser was an American novelist and journalist of the naturalist school. His novels often featured main characters who succeeded at their objectives despite a lack of a firm moral code, and literary situations that more closely resemble studies of nature than tales of...
's bestselling novel An American Tragedy
An American Tragedy
-Plot summary:The ambitious but immature Clyde Griffiths, raised by poor and devoutly religious parents who force him to participate in their street missionary work, is anxious to achieve better things. His troubles begin when he takes a job as a bellboy at a local hotel. The boys he meets are...
; under the title The Case of Clyde Griffiths and with Lee Strasberg
Lee Strasberg
Lee Strasberg was an American actor, director and acting teacher. He cofounded, with directors Harold Clurman and Cheryl Crawford, the Group Theatre in 1931, which was hailed as "America's first true theatrical collective"...
as director, it had run for 19 performances on Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
in 1936. When Piscator and Ley subsequently migrated to the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
in 1939, Piscator was invited by Alvin Johnson
Alvin Saunders Johnson
Alvin Saunders Johnson, Ph.D. was an American economist, born near Homer, Neb., and a co-founder and first director of The New School.-Biography:...
, the founding president of The New School
The New School
The New School is a university in New York City, located mostly in Greenwich Village. From its founding in 1919 by progressive New York academics, and for most of its history, the university was known as the New School for Social Research. Between 1997 and 2005 it was known as New School University...
, to found a theatre Workshop. Among Piscator's students at this “Dramatic Workshop
Dramatic Workshop
Dramatic Workshop was the name of a drama and acting school associated with the New School for Social Research in New York City. It was launched in 1940 by German expatriate stage director Erwin Piscator. Among the faculty were Lee Strasberg and Stella Adler, among the students Marlon Brando, Tony...
“ in New York were Marlon Brando
Marlon Brando
Marlon Brando, Jr. was an American movie star and political activist. "Unchallenged as the most important actor in modern American Cinema" according to the St...
, Tony Curtis
Tony Curtis
Tony Curtis was an American film actor whose career spanned six decades, but had his greatest popularity during the 1950s and early 1960s. He acted in over 100 films in roles covering a wide range of genres, from light comedy to serious drama...
, Bea Arthur, Judith Malina
Judith Malina
Judith Malina is an American theater and film actress, writer, and director, who was one of the founders of The Living Theatre.-Early life:...
, Walter Matthau
Walter Matthau
Walter Matthau was an American actor best known for his role as Oscar Madison in The Odd Couple and his frequent collaborations with Odd Couple star Jack Lemmon, as well as his role as Coach Buttermaker in the 1976 comedy The Bad News Bears...
, Harry Belafonte
Harry Belafonte
Harold George "Harry" Belafonte, Jr. is an American singer, songwriter, actor and social activist. He was dubbed the "King of Calypso" for popularizing the Caribbean musical style with an international audience in the 1950s...
, Elaine Stritch
Elaine Stritch
Elaine Stritch is an American actress and vocalist. She has appeared in numerous stage plays and musicals, feature films, and many television programs...
and Tennessee Williams
Tennessee Williams
Thomas Lanier "Tennessee" Williams III was an American writer who worked principally as a playwright in the American theater. He also wrote short stories, novels, poetry, essays, screenplays and a volume of memoirs...
.
Piscator returned to West Germany
West Germany
West Germany is the common English, but not official, name for the Federal Republic of Germany or FRG in the period between its creation in May 1949 to German reunification on 3 October 1990....
in 1951 due to McCarthy era
McCarthyism
McCarthyism is the practice of making accusations of disloyalty, subversion, or treason without proper regard for evidence. The term has its origins in the period in the United States known as the Second Red Scare, lasting roughly from the late 1940s to the late 1950s and characterized by...
political pressure. He was appointed manager and director of the Freie Volksbühne in West-Berlin in 1962. To much international critical acclaim, in 1963 Piscator premièred Rolf Hochhuth
Rolf Hochhuth
Rolf Hochhuth is a German author and playwright. He is best known for his 1963 drama The Deputy and remains a controversial figure for his plays and other public comments, such as his insinuation of Pope Pius XII's sympathies for Hitler's extermination of the Jews in the 1963 play The Deputy and...
's The Deputy
The Deputy
The Deputy, a Christian tragedy , also known as The Representative, is a controversial 1963 play by Rolf Hochhuth which indicts Pope Pius XII for his failure to take action or speak out against The Holocaust. It has been translated into more than twenty languages...
, a play "about Pope Pius XII and the allegedly neglected rescue of Italian Jews from Nazi gas chambers." Until his death in 1966, Piscator was a major exponent of contemporary and documentary theatre
Documentary theatre
Documentary theatre is theatre that wholly or in part uses pre-existing documentary material as source material for the script, ideally without altering its wording.-History:...
. Piscator's wife, Maria Ley, died in New York city in 1999.
Impact on theatre
| In lieu of private themes we had generalisation, in lieu of what was special the typical, in lieu of accident causality. Decorativeness gave way to constructedness, Reason was put on a par with Emotion, while sensuality was replaced by didacticism and fantasy by documentary reality. |
| Erwin Piscator, 1929. |
Piscator's contribution to theatre has been described by theatre historian Günther Rühle as "the boldest advance made by the German stage" during the 20th century. Piscator's theatre techniques of the 1920s — such as the extensive use of still and cinematic projections from 1925 on, as well as complex scaffold stages — had an extensive influence on European and American production methods. His dramaturgy of contrasts led to sharp political satirical effects and anticipated the commentary techniques of epic theatre.
In the Federal Republic of Germany, Piscator's interventionist
Interventionism
Interventionism may refer to:*Interventionism is a political term for significant activity undertaken by a state to influence something not directly under its control....
theatre model experienced a late second zenith. Several productions trying to come to terms with the German's Nazi past and on other timely issues made Piscator the inspirer of a mnemonic and documentary theatre from 1963 on. Piscator's stage adaptation of Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy
Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy was a Russian writer who primarily wrote novels and short stories. Later in life, he also wrote plays and essays. His two most famous works, the novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina, are acknowledged as two of the greatest novels of all time and a pinnacle of realist...
's novel War and Peace
War and Peace
War and Peace is a novel by the Russian author Leo Tolstoy, first published in 1869. The work is epic in scale and is regarded as one of the most important works of world literature...
has been played in some 16 countries since 1955, including three productions in New York.
In 1980 a monumental sculpture by Scottish artist Eduardo Paolozzi
Eduardo Paolozzi
Sir Eduardo Luigi Paolozzi, KBE, RA , was a Scottish sculptor and artist. He was a major figure in the international art sphere, while, working on his own interpretation and vision of the world. Paolozzi investigated how we can fit into the modern world to resemble our fragmented civilization...
was dedicated to Piscator in central London. In the fall of 1985, an Erwin Piscator Award was inaugurated that is annually being awarded in New York, the adopted city of Piscator's second wife Maria Ley. Additionally, a Piscator Prize of Honors has been annually awarded to generous patrons of art and culture in commemoration of Maria Ley since 1996. The host of the Erwin Piscator Award is the international non-profit organisation "Elysium − between two continents" that aims at fostering artistic and academic dialogue and exchange between the United States and Europe.
Work on Broadway
- Gotthold Ephraim LessingGotthold Ephraim LessingGotthold Ephraim Lessing was a German writer, philosopher, dramatist, publicist, and art critic, and one of the most outstanding representatives of the Enlightenment era. His plays and theoretical writings substantially influenced the development of German literature...
, Nathan the Wise (Belasco TheatreBelasco TheatreThe Belasco Theatre is a legitimate Broadway theatre located at 111 West 44th Street in midtown-Manhattan.-History:Designed by architect George Keister for impresario David Belasco, the interior featured Tiffany lighting and ceiling panels, rich woodwork and expansive murals by American artist...
, April 1942) - Irving Kaye Davis, The Last Stop (Ethel Barrymore TheatreEthel Barrymore TheatreThe Ethel Barrymore Theatre is a legitimate Broadway theatre located at 243 West 47th Street in midtown-Manhattan, named for actress Ethel Barrymore....
, September 1944)
Films
- Revolt of the Fishermen (Восстание рыбаков). Director: Erwin Piscator, Book: Georgi Grebner, Willy Döll, Producer: Mikhail DollerMikhail DollerMikhail Doller was a Soviet film director and screenwriter. He worked as co-director with Vsevolod Pudovkin and was awarded Stalin Prize twice in 1941.-Life:...
, USSR 1932–1934.
Literature
- Connelly, Stacey Jones. Forgotten debts: Erwin Piscator and the epic theatre. Bloomington: Indiana University 1991.
- Innes, Christopher D. Erwin Piscator's Political Theatre: the Development of Modern German Drama. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1972.
- Ley-Piscator, Maria. The Piscator Experiment. The Political Theatre. New York: James H. Heineman 1967.
- McAlpine, Sheila. Visual Aids in the Productions of the First Piscator-Bühne, 1927–28. Frankfurt, Bern, New York etc.: Lang 1990.
- Piscator, Erwin. 1929. The Political Theatre. Trans. Hugh Rorrison. London: Methuen, 1980. ISBN 0-413-33500-3.
- Probst, Gerhard F. Erwin Piscator and the American Theatre. New York, San Francisco, Bern etc. 1991.
- Rorrison, Hugh. Erwin Piscator: Politics on the Stage in the Weimar Republic. Cambridge, Alexandria VA 1987.
- Willett, JohnJohn WillettJohn Willett was a British translator and a scholar who is remembered for translating the work of Bertolt Brecht into English.-Early life:Willett was educated at Winchester and Christ Church, Oxford...
. 1967. The Theatre of Bertolt Brecht: A Study from Eight Aspects. Third rev. ed. London: Methuen, 1977. ISBN 0-413-34360-X. - Willett, John. The Theatre of Erwin Piscator: Half a Century of Politics in the Theatre. London: Methuen 1978. ISBN 0-413-37810-1.
External links
- Internet Movie Database
- Erwin Piscator Papers, 1930–1971 at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, Special Collections Research Center
- Information on the annual Erwin Piscator Award