Rudi’s pictures - the Seitz theatre collection
13th Collector's Room
After training in municipal administration, he moved to the Städtische Bühnen (City's Stages) in 1951, where he soon became an authoritative member of the dramaturgy staff. From 1971 to 1983, he organized the German contribution to the Prague Quadriennale, the international theater exhibition held every four years since 1967, starting 1972 as a member of Hilmar Hoffmann's staff in the Department of Culture. His multifaceted commitment to stage art and his friendship with theater artists stand at the beginning of his collection of design drawings for stage sets and costume figures.
The collection of over 700 works contains primarily stage and costume designs for Frankfurt theater and opera productions, with an emphasis on the 1950s and 1960s. For some productions, the designs for various scenes as well as technical drawings and the corresponding figurines with fabric samples are available. IN addition to the "house stage designer" of the Frankfurt theater, Frank Schultes, well-known guest stage designers such as Teo Otto and Caspar Neher are also represented in the collection. The collection was nourished by donations from artist friends, but was also enlarged by saving sheets from the wastepaper basket.
During the "Buckwitz era" from 1951 to 1968, Rudi Seitz worked as assistant dramaturge at the Städtische Bühnen. With a talent for improvisation and a sure instinct, he took on special tasks and delicate missions: He procured the performance rights and the text of "Herr Puntila und sein Knecht" for the first Brecht performance in Frankfurt after World War II. Even after his move to the Department of Culture, the Städtische Bühnen remained, as he himself put it, his "big family".
The Seitz Collection reflects the history of the Städtische Bühnen after the Second World War. The makeshift stage after the end of the war in the Stock Exchange had unusual spatial dimensions: very wide and not very deep; it is reflected in the stage designs of the time, such as in Frank Schulte's set for "Madame Butterfly" in 1949. The opeing of the newly built Great House of the Opera on December 23, 1951 is also preserved in photographs, a sketch and a colored design of the set for Wagner's "Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg".