[1] Frank Castorf successfully completed his schooling in 1969/70, entering training for railway work.

His teachers included Ernst Schumacher, Rudolf Münz and Joachim Fiebach.

[2] His diploma dissertation, which was formally commended,[2] was entitled "Ground Rules for the 'Development' of Ionesco's Global Ideological Perspective and Artistic-Aesthetic Position".

[1] In 1989, Klaus Pierwoß brought Castorf with a production of Hamlet to Schauspiel Köln, Cologne.

[4] In 2013, he directed a "deliberately incoherent" production of the Ring Cycle at the Bayreuth Wagner Festival, which was booed by the audience.