Thomas Krauth (born November 8, 1953, in Eberbach, Germany) is a German business man, arts dealer and former musical producer.
Krauth Antiquitäten und Auktionen, which was joined by the British auction house and third largest in the world at the time “Phillips Son & Neale” in 1990.
Always on the lookout for innovative and top-class live entertainment, he bought rights to English shows and musicals, most of which had been produced in US, and brought them exclusively to the German stage.
Krauth brought George and Ira Gershwin's musical My One and Only as well as their opera Porgy & Bess as guest performances to large and renowned theatres in Berlin, Cologne, Frankfurt, Munich, Hamburg and Vienna in Austria.
Tour performances with global stars like Shirley McLaine, Diana Ross or US-American ballet dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov were just as common during this time, as were concerts with Guns N' Roses and Bryan Adams.
He redesigned the musical theatres to follow his business philosophy, namely best possible customer satisfaction, economical independence and control over the so-called value-added chain.
It also laid the foundation for the long-term and most friendly cooperation with the Viennese director Alex Balga and the musical artist Anna Montanaro.
[3][4] Anna Montanaro: Live – a one-woman show (2002) as well as the world premiere of the musical Das Mädchen Rosemarie (2004) were both produced in the Capitol Theater's Club by Krauth.
Based on the renowned chef’s culinary expertise, entertaining dinner shows combining musical hits with top class cuisine were played from 2004, named Tonight, Last Christmas or That's Life.
Over a time of roughly three years, between September 11, 1999, to June 30, 2002, more than a million viewers saw the act version of the Bee Gees musical at Cologne.
[6] In 2002, Krauth and his business partner Andrea Friedrichs took over the roller skate musical Starlight Express at Bochum and boosted its success with artistic innovations and creative marketing measures.
[10] In 2005, the Starlight Express producer and artists were granted a special award and received a Platinum CD by Universal Music for achieving sales of over 400,000 live albums in 17 years.
2008 saw another special event: The ZDF show Musical Showstar audited for new performers for the main characters in Starlight Express, “Rusty” and “Pearl”.
Krauth's Duesseldorf production of Cabaret with Anna Montanaro as main character was invited to the Thalia Theater at Hamburg and played there successfully for three weeks.