Plot

In 1953, the Theater am Turm was founded as the Landesbühne Rhein-Main. During the student unrest in the '60s, this spirit of optimism was also felt in the theatre. Conventional models were discarded and new experimental paths were sought.

In 1953, the Theater am Turm was founded as the Landesbühne Rhein-Main. During the student unrest in the sixties, this spirit of optimism was also felt in the theatre. Conventional models were discarded and new experimental paths were sought. For example, during the premiere of Peter Handke's "Publikumsbeschimpfung" (Insulting the Audience) by the then head theatre director Claus Peymann in 1966, tumultuous riots broke out. Audience members who had been verbally attacked by actors made their displeasure known loudly and climbed onto the stage, where fisticuffs also occurred. New models were also tried out in the performance structure, with a co-determination concept entering the theatre for the first time in the early 1970s. But here, too, politics intervened. A committee of enquiry investigated whether Marxist cadres were being trained at the TAT. In 1974/75 Reiner Maria Fassbinder directed the TAT for a year, but failed due to financial and artistic quarrels. The dispute over his play "The Garbage, the City and Death" earned him accusations of anti-Semitism. In 1978, the TAT was to be closed for the first time and the "socialist political ensemble" was to receive severance pay. But in 1980 there was a new beginning and from 1985 - under Tom Stromberg's direction - the TAT became a venue for independent experimental theatre groups and international guest performances. In 1999, the choreographer William Forsythe took over as artistic director and Tom Kühnel and Robert Schuster as theatre directors. The TAT Frankfurt was finally closed in 2004 by decision of the Frankfurt city treasurers, and the drama section was already discontinued at the turn of the year 2003. This means the closure of a house that not only provided sensational and groundbreaking theatre events, but was also a stage for the international theatre avant-garde. However, the venue of the TAT, the Bockenheimer Depot, will be retained by the Städtische Bühnen Frankfurt and used for ballets and new projects.