Peter Zadek was born in Berlin. His family emigrated to England where Zadek studied first at Oxford and later, direction at the Old Vic Theatre School in London. After working as a director for the BBC and numerous productions for the English stage he returned to Germany in 1958. He worked with Kurt Hubner in Ulm and Bremen and staged his first Shakespeare productions: 'Maί fur Maί' ('Measure for Measure', 1960) and 'Der Kaufmann von Venedig'(The Merchant of Venice, 1961). From 1967 on, Zadek directed at a number of German theatres (Wuppertal, Stuttgart, Berlin, Munich) as well as making films, such as 'Rotmord'(after Tankred Dorst's Toller) , 'Ich bin ein Elefant', 'Madame / I'm an Elephant', 'Madame,Der Pott' (after Sean 'O'Casey's' ('Silver Tassie') and 'Eiszeit'. He was artistic director (Intendant) in Bochum from 1972,directing such outstanding productions as 'Kleiner Mann, was nun' (after Fallada's novel),'The Merchant of Venice', 'King Lear', 'Hamlet' and 'Hedda Gabler'. From 1985 he directed the Deutsches Schauspielhaus in Hamburg, which Zadek's productions made one of the most fascinating theatres in Europe (e.g. Shakespeare's 'Othello' (1976) and 'Das Wintermarchen'('A Winter's Tale', 1978), Webster's 'Die Herzogin von Malfi' ('The Duchess of Malfi', 1985) and 'Wedekind's Lulu' (1988)). Since 1990 he has worked as an independent director in Berlin (Berliner Ensemble, Theater des Westens, Freie Volksbuhne), Vienna (Burgtheater), Hamburg (Thalia Theater, Kammerspiele), Munich (Kammerspiele), Paris (Theatre de l'Europe) and at the Salzburger Festival (Brecht/ Weill: 'Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagony' (1989)). Together with Fritz Marquardt, Heiner Mόller and Peter Palitzsch he directed the Berliner Ensemble from 1993 to 1995, where his productions included Brecht's 'Der Jasager und der Neinsager' (1993) and Shakespeare's 'Antonius and Cleopatra' (1994). His recent work includes Ibsen's 'Rosmersholm' (2000), Marlowe's 'Der Jude von Malta' ('The Jew of Malta', 2001), Tennessee Williams's 'Die Nacht des Leguan' ('The Night of the Iguana', 2002), 'Mutter Courage und ihre Kinder' (2003) and the 2004 Berliner Ensemble production of Ibsen's 'Peer Gynt', his first of this play after his many successes with Ibsen's other works. The production celebrated an overwhelming success at the Edinburgh Festival. In June 2005, Zadek staged Strindberg's 'Der Totentanz I and II' ('The Dance of Death') for the Wiener Festwochen at the Burgtheater and in 2006 'Der bittere Honig' ('A Taste of Honey') by Shelagh Delaney at Hamburg's St.-Pauli- Theater. Peter Zadek has been a member of the Akademie der Konste since 1991. He received the Kunstpreis Berlin and the title Commandeur des Arts et des Lettres in 1992 and the Order of Merit of the German Federal Republic in 2002. His productions have repeatedly been invited to the Wiener Festwochen, the Theatertreffen in Berlin and the Edinburgh Festival. 'Theater heute' has several times named him Director of the Year most recently in 1999 for 'Hamlet' (his 20th Shakespeare production) and in 2001 for Ibsen's 'Rosmersholm' and the production of von Neil La Bute's 'Bash'. Peter Zadek lives in Lucca, Berlin und Hamburg. For nearly fifty years, Peter Zadek has been the outstanding director of German Theatre. His productions 'split' both the audiences and the critics but, overall, the success of his theatre was overwhelming. He has revitalised the art of theatre direction, both working through a 'conceptual' way of directing and directly on texts with hisΊ group of actors. A whole generation of outstanding German actors appeared in his productions, to name but a few: Ulrich Wildgruber, Hermann Lause, Hans Mahnke, Gόnter Lόders, Bruno Ganz, Otto Sander, Hans Michael Rehberg, Gerd Voss, Ignaz Kirchner and actresses like Hannelore Hoger, Edith Clever, Eva Mattes, Susanne Lothar, Jutta Hoffmann, Angela Winkler. And the focus of Zadek's work as a director of plays were his three 'saints' Shakespeare, Ibsen and Tschechow. For more than twenty years the German poetress Elisabeth Plessen does the translation-work for Zadek's productions of these classics. Says PZ: ΊImagination is the greatest of all, it is untouchable. If human beings had no imagination, they would be boring they would be like beasts, probably. Imagination is a very precious quality of human beings. It is the most private 'possession' a human being has. When Peter Stein and myself started in the sixties, we argued permanently about the subject of imagination. He always said, analysis was the most essential and I said: imagination. I don't care a bit about analysis.' Quoted from the recent edition of 'Nahaufnahme Peter Zadek Gesprache mit Klaus Dermutz' Alexander Verlag Berlin 2007.