Fred Berndt (Germany)

Directing, Acting

Fred Berndt was born in Cottbus and grew up in Kamenz, Saxony. He studied stage design with Prof. Willi Schmidt at the University of the Arts Berlin. He subsequently became assistant stage designer at the Freie Volksbühne and the Schaubühne am Halleschen Ufer Berlin, where he also worked with Karl-Ernst Herrmann. Assisting Peter Stein and Klaus Michael Grüber he was initiated into the art of directing.

From 1971 to 1973 he worked as a set designer at the TAT-theatre in Frankfurt and from 1974 to 1976 at the Deutsches Schauspielhaus in Hamburg. He created sets for notable directors such as Adolf Dresen, Prof. August Everding, Andrasz Fricsay, Ullrich Heising, Alfred Kirchner, Peter Löscher, Hagen Müller-Stahl, Wolfgang Wiens, George Tabori and B.K. Tragelehn. In 1985 he became chief set designer of the Städtische Bühnen Berlin.

Early on in his career, Fred Berndt was drawn to music theatre. He created his first sets for an opera production in Frankfurt – Così fan tutte – in 1974, with conductor Christoph von Dohnanyi and director Andras Fricsay. One year later, Fred Berndt gave his offical debut as a director with Brecht’s A Respectable Wedding at the Nationaltheater Mannheim.

Fred Berndt has directed and created sets for almost all major German theatres, as well as for the Burg- and Akademietheater, the Volkstheater and the Theater in der Josefstadt in Vienna, the Zurich Schauspielhaus and Theater am Neumarkt and the Basel Stadttheater.

In 1987 his production of Doris Lessing’s Each His Own Wilderness was invited to the Berlin Theatertreffen Festival.

Since 1991 Fred Berndt has increasingly staged opera. He regularly combines the functions of director and set designer – thus in the season of 1997/98 he created both the staging and the sets for Webers Der Freischütz in Frankfurt am Main as well as for Strauss’s Die Frau ohne Schatten in Essen. His production of Detlef Glanert’s Scherz, Satire, Ironie und tiefere Bedeutung won the Bavarian Theatre Award for opera in 2001.