Bertolt Brecht was born on February 10, 1898 in Augsburg, Bavaria, and died on August 14, 1956. He was a German playwright, theatre director and Marxist. The modest house where he was born is today preserved as a Brecht Museum. Brecht formed a writing collective which became prolific and very influential. He wrote many lyrics for musicals and collaborated with Kurt Weill to create Die Dregroschenoper -- the biggest hit in 1920s Berlin. Brecht experimented with his own theater and company -- the Berliner Ensemble -- which put on his plays under his direction and which continued after his death with the assistance of his wife. Brecht aspired to create political theater, and it is difficult to… evaluate his work in purely aesthetic terms. Brecht died in 1956.
The son of Clifford and Agnes Gilmour Hare, David Hare was born on June 5, 1947, in St. Leonards, England. After graduating from Jesus College in Cambridge in 1968 with the honors Master of Arts degree in English, Hare went to work for the film company A.B. Pathe. Soon after, Hare co-founded the Portable Theatre Company, a touring experimental theatre group. While serving as the theatre's director from 1968 to 1971, Hare wrote his first plays. In 1970, Hare won the Evening Standard Drama Award for most promising new playwright for Slag, his first major play. Two years later, after Portable Theatre declared bankruptcy, Hare became resident dramatist at Nottingham Playhouse. Hare also… co-founded the Joint Stock Theatre Group and served as its director from 1975 to 1980. During these years Hare produced many more plays, including The Great Exhibition, Brassneck, and Knuckle, the first of Hare's plays to be produced in London's West End. In addition to directing his own plays, Hare has directed such works as The Party by Trevor Griffiths, Devil's Island by Tony Bicat, and King Lear, with Anthony Hopkins in the title role. In 1982, Hare opened his own film company, Greenpoint Films. Among the screenplays written by Hare are Plenty, Paris by Night, and Wetherby, a story about repressed passions among members of the middle class.