His father, Herbert Stein, was factory director of Alfred Teves, a motorcycle manufacturing firm that the Nazi regime employed to make automotive parts.

Since the end of the 1960s, Peter Stein, leader and “demiurge” of an extraordinary collective, has succeeded in regenerating theatre in Germany and Germanic areas.

He has enriched it with his interest in exploratory work on the actor and the scenic space, the text and timing, which – following a German and central European tradition – manifest in a provocative expression of politics, philology, collective artistic creation, revelations of history and a re-examination of the critical and social function of theatre in today’s world.

The experience of “his” collective, beginning in 1970 at the Schaubühne in Berlin with Bruno Ganz, Edith Clever, Jutta Lampe, Michael König and other actors, redefined the meaning of theatre work in terms that quite soon were recognisable as Steinian.

Alternating reinterpretations of Ibsen, von Kleist, Brecht, Gorky, Shakespeare, Aeschylus and Chekhov with productions of Edward Bond, Peter Handke and Botho Strauss, the work evolved constantly, with a framework, method and choices through which Stein directed his actors and collaborators along a shared, highly engrossing path, at once artistic and political, that marked a particular period of the Berlin and European scene.

Peter Stein’s vitality, vast cultural knowledge and passion for every aspect of theatre work have driven him in recent years towards new creations and activities.

Peter Stein’s wide-ranging mastery and spirit of tireless exploration, as evidenced by these accomplishments, continue to offer new perspectives, teachings and inspiration to theatre around the world.