Friederike Sophie Seyler[a] (1738, Dresden – 22 November 1789, Schleswig; née Sparmann, formerly married Hensel) was a German actress, playwright and librettist.

"[2] The granddaughter of the architect Matthäus Daniel Pöppelmann, she ran away from an abusive uncle under the threat of a forced marriage to join the theatre at the age of sixteen in 1754.

[4] Musicologist Thomas Bauman describes Oberon as "an important impulse for the creation of a generation of popular spectacles trading in magic and the exotic.

In order to escape an arranged marriage that her uncle had set up, she ran away from him to join the theatre at the age of sixteen in 1754.

In 1755, aged seventeen, she married a fellow actor, 27-year old Johann Gottlieb Hensel (1728–1787), and at the end of 1755 they both joined the troupe of Franz Schuch in Breslau, where she earned acclaim as an actress.

A fervent admirer of Friederike Sophie Hensel, Abel Seyler was a former banker and "a handsome bon vivant" who had suffered a sensational bankruptcy for an enormous sum in the wake of the Amsterdam banking crisis of 1763, and who would later become one of the great theatre principals of 18th century Europe.

It was largely his admiration for Friederike Sophie Hensel, by then 29, that led him to devote himself to theatre from 1767; as a result of her rivalry with 22-year old Karoline Schulze, Friederike Sophie Hensel was at the centre of the intrigue that led her admirer Seyler to "establish a theatre for her, where she could reign undisputed without fearing any rivalry.

After the 1774 Schloss Weimar fire, the Seyler company moved to the ducal court of Gotha, and was based in Leipzig and Dresden from 1775 to 1777.

From 1777 to 1779 the Seyler company was primarily based in Frankfurt and Mainz and travelled extensively to Cologne, Hanau, Mannheim, Heidelberg and Bonn.

In 1779 the Seyler company formed the core of the new Mannheim National Theatre, which her husband led as its founding artistic director.

She mastered diverse roles, but won particular acclaim for her portrayal of passionate, majestic tragic heroines such as Clytemnestra, Medea and Gertrude in Hamlet.

Writing about her performance in Françoise de Graffigny's Cénie, Lessing noted that "not a word falls from her mouth to the earth.

The play is written in the style of a comédie larmoyante, popular with female playwrights, where a happy ending follows a tragic narrative.

[13] As a playwright Friederike Sophie Seyler is best remembered for the influential romantic Singspiel Huon and Amanda (German: Hüon und Amande), better known as Oberon.

Inspired by Wieland's poem Oberon and one of the earliest plays based on a fairy tale, it was published in 1789, the year she died, and was dedicated to her and her husband's long-time friend and collaborator, the actor Friedrich Ludwig Schröder.

Her libretto was shortly after re-adapted by Karl Ludwig Giesecke for the theatre company of Emanuel Schikaneder, with new music by Paul Wranitzky.