BRETH, ANDREA

(1952- )

   Director. While studying literature at Heidelberg, Breth worked concomitantly at the Heidelberg City Theater as a director's assistant. In 1975, as a director in her own right, she staged a popular production of Yevgeni Schwartz's The Enchanted Brothers. After several stagings in Hamburg, Wiesbaden, and Bochum, she was about to make her breakthrough in 1981 at the Berlin Volksbühne with Emilia Galotti by Gotthold Ephraim Less-ing—but critics panned it and audiences avoided it. The Freiburg City Theater subsequently hired her in 1983 to stage Federico Garcia Lorca's House of Bernarda Alba, which proved to be Breth's career resurrection, and Theater Heute named her "directress of the year" as a result. In 1985 Breth began a remarkable string of triumphs: nine of her productions were invited to the Berliner Theatertreffen. She directed at several important regional theaters, winning the 1987 Kort-ner Prize, and in 1992 she was appointed artistic director of the Schaubühne am Lehniner Platz. In 1997 Breth was named house director of the Burgtheater in Vienna. She was awarded the Nestroy Prize in 2003.