Berlin – The “Current Camera” once ran from here, now theater is being played again. The old broadcasting hall of GDR television, Studio 5, will officially reopen this Saturday as the venue for the East Theater.
“In the course of the pandemic, we had to leave our old rooms in the front building on the site of the former GDR television. With a view to the distance regulations, they were no longer big enough, ”explains the director of Theater Ost, Kathrin Schülein.
But that they would find a new artistic home in the old broadcasting hall of the most famous news broadcast in the GDR and in the former “Theater des Fernssehen der GDR”, they could hardly have dreamed of at Theater Ost. Within a few days, they completed the conversion of the studio that was previously used as a warehouse.
Building of the GDR television in the Bauhaus style
The GDR television commissioned the listed building in Adlershof in the Bauhaus style in 1952. The architect Franz Ehrlich, after whom the entire ensemble including the tower near the Adlershof S-Bahn station was named, designed a hall with up to 520 seats in the parquet and tier in one of the buildings, which later became Studio 5.
In 1957, the hall from which operas and television fun plays were broadcast was gutted and converted into Studio 5. From then on, the “Current Camera”, the “Tagesschau” of the East, the reliable voice of the party, ran from here every evening at half past seven. With five days ahead of the first edition of the ARD “Tagesschau”, the “Current Camera” was after all the oldest German television news program.
Excessive reports on SED party congresses
Excessive reports about meetings of the Central Committee, SED party congresses, awards and visits by officials in combines and agriculture, reports about fulfilled plans and the obligatory reports about drug deaths in the FRG were characteristic of the news broadcast with the characteristic fanfare intro. With the end of GDR television on December 31, 1991, the hall remained empty.
The East Theater temporarily used it as a warehouse. The current owner of the property, Stefan Klinkenberg, has a heart for artists and has now made the move possible. While the building is being renovated, there will initially be a playground for the East Theater for two years. A donation of 100,000 euros from the Neustart Kultur fund and donations made the conversion of the former theater into the new East Theater possible.
Theater Ost
On Saturday, the East Theater invites you to reopen the old broadcasting hall of the “Current Camera”.
Tons of fabrics were installed in the studio, the heating, which had been cut off because of the strong headlights in the former television studio, had to go back into operation, and grandstands, technology and a sprung floor had to be installed. The audience now sits where the AK moderator’s desk once stood when, after almost exactly 30 years of continuous sleep, the studio comes to life again.
Rethink the East without forgetting the past
Rethinking the East, redesigning it, re-staging it without forgetting the past, that’s what Schülein said. “Only those who know the past can understand the present. And so that this new start can also succeed, the baton will be handed over to the grand master of the ‘Current Camera’, Klaus Feldmann, ”announced the theater manager.
From 1961 to September 1989, Feldmann was chief spokesman for “Current Camera”. To reopen his old job, he reads from his book “Verhörte Hörer: Spokespersons and slip-ups from radio and television”, in which he opens the gates of memory from forty years of slip-off history of the GDR radio.
House of GDR television continues to write history and is being renovated
And in November it will continue with a premiere: “We are already rehearsing,” says Kathrin Schülein. On November 26th, 2021 there will be the first performance of “The Players” by Nikolai Gogol. A crazy prelude and epilogue by a young Russian playwright, Alexander Estis, who vigorously clears up clichés about Russians and Russia, shows the path that Theater Ost wants to take. Shedding light on what has happened across the Oder in the last 30 years is a goal. And the theater wants to remain true to itself.
“We’re pretty much alone out here in Adlershof and have a very mixed crowd. We show everything: concerts, talk shows, our own productions, ballet, children’s events, ”says Kathrin Schülein. She is planning an exhibition on the house and so much more. The history of the house is far from over. And it will be passed on with a lot of passion.
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