Großes Schauspielhaus

The Grosses Schauspielhaus was Berlin's most famous variety and revue theater of the Weimar Republic, between Schiffbauerdamm and Reinhardtstrasse. In 1918 to 1919 Hans Poelzig and his wife Marlene Moeschke-Poelzig converted a disused market hall into a 3,500-seat theater for Max Reinhardt. The dome above the auditorium was clad in crystalline stalactites that could be lit in shifting colors, a key work of architectural Expressionism that later influenced film sets such as Metropolis. Erik Charell and Erwin Piscator staged their biggest productions here. The Nazis expropriated the theater in 1933, war damage took the rest, and in 1980 East Berlin demolished it. The Friedrichstadt-Palast now stands nearby; traces of the original outer wall can still be glimpsed in the adjoining courtyard.