GOSCH, JÜRGEN

(1943- )

Director. Gosch became one of the German theater's leading directors in the 1980s, with numerous productions invited to the BerlinerTheatertreffen. He began his career in East Germany, where he completed studies as an actor inBerlin. His first engagement was in Mecklenburg, but in 1967 he began working in Potsdam as both an actor and a director. He attracted attention in East and West Germany with his "breakthrough" 1978 staging ofGeorgBüchner'sLéonce und Lenaat the Berlin Volksbühne, which the East German regime strongly criticized and soon banned. Soon thereafter Gosch escaped to the West, where he began working in Hannover and Bremen. His most significant directing work emerged initially inCologne, where his productions of Maxim Gorky'sThe Lower Depthsand Molière'sThe Misanthropewere widely praised. Beginning in 1984 Gosch worked steadily underJürgen Flimmat the Thalia Theater inHamburg, and his production ofOedipus Tyrannusby Sophocles appeared at the 1986 Theatertreffen. In the 1990s he assumed a similar position under Thomas Langhoff at theDeutsches Theaterin Berlin. Gosch's 2005 staging of Edward Albee'sWho's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? was widely praised and attracted nationwide attention, including another Theatertreffen invitation.