Biography:

Alexander Lang, actor and theater director, was born in 1941 in Erfurt. From 1963 until 1966 he trained at the Academy of Performing Arts in Berlin, together with actresses Jenny Gröllmann (Ich war neunzehn) and Renate Krößner (Solo Sunny).   
 

He was first hired by the Maxim Gorki Theater in Berlin, but he left a year later for the world-renowned Brecht’s Berliner Ensemble. Since 1969, he inspired audiences with performances in classic plays by Schiller, Shakespeare, and Heiner Müller. Lang also worked as a director at the Deutsches Theater since the late 1970s, where he directed a long list of memorable performances. While there, he brought some progressive changes into the world of East German theater, especially in the 1980s, which helped the Deutsches Theater develop an international reputation. Lang moved to West Germany in the mid-1980s for political reasons. In the 1990s, he was co-director of the Schiller-Theater and staged productions at the Comédie-Française in Paris. Lang returned to the Deutsches Theater in 1993, and he remains an important figure in the world of German and international theater.

Lang’s work in film began while he was still a student. Two of his performances are particularly unforgettable: as the musician in Konrad Wolf’s Berlin film, Solo Sunny, and as the lead in the television production  Der Leutnant Yorck von Wartenburg, a story about the failed assassination of Hitler. Alexander Lang worked as a freelance director and actor. 

Alexander Land died on May 31, 2024.