Hansgünther Heyme (born 22 August 1935)[1] is a German theatre director and prominent figure in the Regietheater movement of the 1960s and 70s.

After his father's death from typhoid in World War II, his mother Erika married Kurt Joachim Fischer who became a prominent journalist and screenplay writer in post-war Germany.

[3][5] Heyme began his directing career at the Mannheim National Theatre and at Theater Heidelberg where he became both director-in-residence and an actor in 1958.

Known as an "aggressive modernizer" of the classics, Heyme caused a near-riot in the Wiesbaden theatre with his controversial 1965 production of Schiller's play William Tell which he set in the Nazi era.

At Cologne he concentrated on works by the classic German playwrights, Schiller, Goethe, and Hebbel and on ancient Greek tragedies and comedies, his "Antiquity Project".

[9] As in Wiesbaden, Heyme's productions of both classic European dramas and ancient Greek plays were marked by their radical modernization which made reference to contemporary political and social issues.

[2][10] The final scene of the Heyme-Vostell production depicted the dead Hamlet, Claudius, Gertrude, and Laertes lying naked on metal trolleys with their intestines on top of their bodies.

[11] In search of new forms of theatrical expression in 1979, Heyme staged an epic production of Sophocles' play Antigone in Calcutta.

[13] After leaving Cologne, Heyme worked as the artistic director for drama at the Württemberg State Theatre in Stuttgart.

From 1990 to 2003 Heyme was also the artistic director of the Ruhrfestspiele theatre festival and concentrated primarily on his work there after leaving Bremen.

Amongst his other productions in Ludwigshafen were the German premiere in 2007 of Mohamed Kacimi's play on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, Holy Land, and the world premiere in 2014 of Gilgamesch, a play based on a new German translation of the Epic of Gilgamesh by Stefan Maul and adapted for the stage by Christoph Klimke.

Written during the preparation and rehearsals for The Tempest, the book recounts episodes in his life from his early childhood to the present.

He had earlier directed Puccini's Manon Lescaut for Frankfurt Opera in 1983, Strauss's Elektra for the Pfalztheater in 2009, and Wagner's Ring Cycle for Theater im Pfalzbau and Oper Halle in 2013.