Ruth Brinkmann (July 27, 1934 â€" January 18, 1997) was the founder of
Vienna's English Theatre.Ruth Brinkmann was brought up in the Long
Island suburbs of New York City. She studied acting at the Yale
University Graduate School of Drama, directly from which she made her
New York debut as Louise in G. B. Shaw's In Good King Charles's Golden
Days, and continued her professional career in repertory at the
Williamstown Playhouse in Massachusetts, the Cleveland Playhouse in
Ohio, as well as the Court Theatre in Beloit, Wisconsin; Manhattan's
Town Hall, and the Chautauqua Arts Festival.Subsequent to these
appearances, Brinkmann was, together with Alan Alda, chosen from more
than one thousand actors who auditioned for the Ford Foundation's
experimental theatre program at the Cleveland Playhouse in Ohio. Her
Ford award was for three years, but, on her first summer vacation from
Cleveland in 1959, she visited Vienna as a tourist. She met and later
married the Austrian director, Franz Schafranek, and settled there in
1960.As she spoke no German at the time, her husband had the idea of
starting an English-language theatre that would enable her to continue
her work. The young couple opened their theatre in 1963 in a rented
99-seat auditorium in a downtown palace with a production of Jerome
Kilty's Dear Liar, starring Brinkmann and Anthony Steel, directed by
Franz Schafranek.
Vienna's English Theatre.Ruth Brinkmann was brought up in the Long
Island suburbs of New York City. She studied acting at the Yale
University Graduate School of Drama, directly from which she made her
New York debut as Louise in G. B. Shaw's In Good King Charles's Golden
Days, and continued her professional career in repertory at the
Williamstown Playhouse in Massachusetts, the Cleveland Playhouse in
Ohio, as well as the Court Theatre in Beloit, Wisconsin; Manhattan's
Town Hall, and the Chautauqua Arts Festival.Subsequent to these
appearances, Brinkmann was, together with Alan Alda, chosen from more
than one thousand actors who auditioned for the Ford Foundation's
experimental theatre program at the Cleveland Playhouse in Ohio. Her
Ford award was for three years, but, on her first summer vacation from
Cleveland in 1959, she visited Vienna as a tourist. She met and later
married the Austrian director, Franz Schafranek, and settled there in
1960.As she spoke no German at the time, her husband had the idea of
starting an English-language theatre that would enable her to continue
her work. The young couple opened their theatre in 1963 in a rented
99-seat auditorium in a downtown palace with a production of Jerome
Kilty's Dear Liar, starring Brinkmann and Anthony Steel, directed by
Franz Schafranek.
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