Lothar Schreyer

German artist, writer, editor, stage designer and gallery owner, who was the first Master of the stagecraft workshop at the Bauhaus art school.

From 1911 to 1918, he worked as a dramaturge and assistant director at the Deutsches Schauspielhaus in Hamburg and from 1916 until 1928 he was the editor of Der Sturm magazine, owned by Herwarth Walden.

In 1918 Scheyer and Walden founded the Sturmbühne, an expressionist theatre. Schreyer’s first plays Kreuzigung (Crucifixion) and Kindssterben (Death of a Child) were performed during his tenure as director there. Scheyer left the theatre in 1921.

In 1921 Walter Gropius, director of the Bauhaus in Weimar, invited him to lead the school's stagecraft workshop. Gropius established the workshop to explore theatrical methods, as he saw similarities between building and stage work. Students from all departments were encouraged to participate. Scheyer, like fellow teachers Johannes Itten and Gertrud Grunow, was regarded as one of the Bauhaus 'esoterics', as opposed to the more technically-minded Gropius.

He was experimental and concealed his players behind geometric full-body masks to explore the language of form. However, his plays such as Mondspiel (Moon Play) and Kreuzigung (Crucifixion) were not well received at the school and he left in 1923.

From 1924 to 1927, he was a teacher at the Berlin art school 'Der Weg'. From 1928 to 1931, he was head editor of the publishing house Hanseatische Verlagsanstalt.

He was one of 88 German writers who signed the Gelöbnis treuester Gefolgschaft, a 1933 public declaration of faithful allegiance to Adolf Hitler. This did not stop his work being classified by the Nazis as 'degenerate art.'

Lothar Schreyer died on 18 June 1966 in Hamburg at age 79.