Director and Actor
Herbert Fritsch
Herbert Fritsch completed his acting training at the Otto Falckenberg School in Munich. After graduating, he was engaged by the Residenztheater Munich, Theater Basel, Hessische Staatstheater Wiesbaden, Staatstheater Stuttgart, Schauspielhaus Hamburg, and Schauspielhaus Bochum, among others.
From the early 1990s until 2007, he was a member of the ensemble at Berlin’s Volksbühne, where, under the artistic direction of Frank Castorf, his unconventional productions drew sold-out crowds. At the same time, he was active as a media artist and has been involved in the intermedia art project hamlet_X as an author, performer, photographer, and illustrator since 2000.
From the early 1990s until 2007, he was a member of the ensemble at Berlin’s Volksbühne, where, under the artistic direction of Frank Castorf, his unconventional productions drew sold-out crowds. At the same time, he was active as a media artist and has been involved in the intermedia art project hamlet_X as an author, performer, photographer, and illustrator since 2000.
Since leaving the Volksbühne, he has worked as a freelance director and set designer at various German-language theaters, including the Neues Theater Halle, the Theater Oberhausen, the Hessisches Staatstheater Wiesbaden, the Schaubühne Berlin, the Schauspiel Leipzig, the Bremer Theater, and the Thalia Theater in Hamburg.
In 2014, Herbert Fritsch made his debut at the Komische Oper Berlin with his acclaimed production of Don Giovanni.
In 2009, the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen dedicated a retrospective to his entire film oeuvre. In addition, numerous of his plays have been invited to the Berliner Theatertreffen over the years, including the Volksbühne productions Die (s)panische Fliege by Franz Arnold and Ernst Bach (2012), Murmel Murmel based on Dieter Roth (2013), and Ohne Titel Nr. 1 – eine Oper von Herbert Fritsch (2014), Die Mann based on Konrad Bayer (2016), and Pfusch (2017).
For Die (s)panische Fliege, the magazine Theater heute named him Director of the Year in 2012, and in 2016 he received the 3sat Prize.
From 2017 to 2019, he was closely associated with the Schaubühne in Berlin, and since 2019 he has been a member of the Berlin Academy of Arts.
In 2020, he worked for Schauspiel Frankfurt, where he directed Thomas Bernhard’s Theatermacher.
As of April 2026