Contra-Kreis-Theater

The Contra-Kreis-Theater is Bonn's oldest private theatre and now occupies an unremarkable building next to the main hall of Friedrich-Wilhelms-University. It was founded in 1950 by Gustav Kurt Hoffmann, who pointedly opened not with a light comedy but with Hamlet, a deliberate gesture in the newly minted federal capital. In 1966 the house had to give up its original site to make way for the new town hall and moved to its present location. Programming has since become more pragmatic: comedies, musicals and occasional political cabaret fill the intimate auditorium of just under 300 seats. Evening visitors sit close to the stage, often with actors familiar from German television, and meet a loyal Bonn regular audience during the interval.