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Cologne - center of two highly theatrical events: Catholicism and carnival.
Cologne comedy is well known from radio and television, and when it comes to Cologne theater, many people immediately think of Thünnes und Schäl or the Millowitsch family's folk theater.
However, Cologne has also had a municipal theater since 1872, where such important directors as Hansgünter Heyme and Jürgen Flimm have caused a sensation.
Esther Schweins introduces the Schauspiel Köln, wanders from the roof to the boiler room of the Theaterhaus and provides an insight into the unconventionally converted rococo smoking foyer from the 1990s.
Konrad Adenauer's grandson talks about his father's relationship to the theater and Peter Mennekes, Jesuit and well-known Cologne exhibition organizer, talks about the relationship between church and theater.
In addition, Helga Rensch, author of "Karnevalsknigge" and co-initiator of the Cologne Stunksitzung, will talk about the similarities between carnival and theater.
And Ralph Morgenstern, well-known "Kaffeeklatsch" aunt and permanent ensemble member of Schauspiel Köln, describes his experiences as "Wagner" in Goethe's Faust and explains why an acting career like his is only possible in Cologne.
In 1872, the first municipal theater opened in Cologne: a multi-genre theater with 1300 seats in Glockengasse.
In the 1920s, Schauspiel Köln achieved supra-regional importance.
Director Gustav Hartung engaged Berlin acting stars on the Rhine, for example the legendary Heinrich George.
In 1929, the Center Party opposed a performance of Bertholt Brecht's "Threepenny Opera".
Lord Mayor Adenauer is said to have mediated at the time and the play was staged - slightly "toned down".
Under the Nazis, Alexander Spring, a staunch Nazi, became artistic director.
In 1943, the theater burned to the ground in a heavy bomb attack.
In August 1945, just three months after the end of the war, the theater was the first in the British zone to begin performing again.
Alternative venues were the university auditorium and a museum in the south of the city.
Many new authors were added to the repertoire, for example the first performance of Thornton Wilder's "We Got Away with It" took place here.
The provisional period lasted until 1962.
Even German President Heinrich Lübke attended the opening of the new theater.
Schiller's "Räuber" was performed with Klaus-Jürgen Wussow as "Karl".
In 1968, Hangünter Heyme came to the theater as a director who wanted to perform the works "not from the page, but against the grain", triggering fierce controversy.
Under Jürgen Flimm, from 1979 to 1985, Cologne became a German theater mecca.
