Biography:

Barbara Schnitzler was born on February 19, 1953 in Berlin, where she trained at the Ernst Busch Academy for the Performing Arts. Her first engagement was at the Theater der Freundschaft in Berlin; since 1977, she has been a permanent member of the Deutsches Theater ensemble.

Schnitzler has worked with stage directors including Frido Solter, Michael Thalheimer, Roland Schimmelpfennig and Jürgen Gosch, and has acted in plays including Die Ratten, Bitterer Honig and Sugardollies. She played the lead in Die bitteren Tränen der Petra von Kant (dir. Philipp Preuss), based on Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s play. In 2010, she performed the solo play Das Jahr magischen Denkens (dir. Gabriele Heinz) at the Deutsches Theater.

Since the mid-1970s, Schnitzler has also performed in many television and film productions. In Iris Gusner’s film Alle meine Mädchen, she played the young, emancipated Anita, and former East German audiences still remember her as the teacher in Rolf Losansky’s children’s film classic, Der lange Ritt zur Schule.

Barbara Schnitzler continues to perform regularly in films and on television, as well as in person. Since 2001, she has performed Jazz, Lyric, Prosa readings. In 2010, she performed a solo play based on Joan Didion's memoir, The Year of Magical Thinking, under the direction of Gabriele Heinz. And in 2013 she began offering an evening of chansons entitled Fahr doch allein Karussell.

Festivals & Awards: