The festival originated in the postwar winter of 1946/47, when Hamburg theatres were unable to heat their premises and sent representatives to the Ruhr valley to "organize" coal.

A small group of persons, leaded by Otto Burrmeister [de], head of administration of the Deutsches Schauspielhaus, went to the Ruhr Area with two wood gas trucks, and asked miners of the first mine they could find for fuel.

The new director Hansgünther Heyme, who shaped the festival until 2003, invited companies from European countries "from the Atlantic to the Urals", in an effort to counteract growing nationalism and xenophobia.

He set mottos for the each festival, in 1991 it was "Foundations of Empire"(Reichs-Gründungen), in 1993 "25 Years after 1968" (Aufbrüche – 25 Jahre nach ’68), in the 50th anniversary year of 1996 "Art is the Motor of Every Culture" (Kunst ist der Motor jeder Kultur), in 1998 "Future Without Past" (Zukunft ohne Vergangenheit), 2001 "Courage, I say, Courage" (Mut, sag ich, Mut), 2002 "Longings and addictions" (SehnSüchte).

The theme of 2009 was "Northern Lights" (Nordlichter), presenting plays by Henrik Ibsen and August Strindberg, but the festival also showed Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard and Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale, both in a collaboration with the Brooklyn Academy of Music and The Old Vic.

[8] John Malkovich appeared in a musical version of the movie The Infernal Comedy – confessions of a serial killer by Michael Sturminger [de].

[9][10] In 2012, the Motto was "Im Osten was Neues: Von den fernen Tagen des russischen Theaters in die Zukunft", reflecting Russian theatre, with performances of plays by Pushkin, Chekhov, Tolstoi and Dostoyevski.