Stefan Brecht (1924–2009)

Stefan Brecht was born November 3, 1924 in Berlin to playwright Bertolt Brecht and actress Helene Weigel. The family lived briefly in Finland, Stockholm, and Denmark before arriving in Santa Monica, California in 1941. Although the rest of the family left America after Bertolt Brecht was interrogated by HUAC, Stefan Brecht stayed to finish his M.A. thesis on Hegel at UCLA. He then earned a PhD in philosophy from Harvard, and went on to teach and study in Miami and Paris.

Brecht later came to New York City, where he lived in the Chelsea Hotel and became very involved in the experimental theater and performance collectives emerging in the late sixties. He wrote about downtown New York avant-garde performers with the intention of creating a nine-book opus with the overarching title "The Original Theatre of New York: From the Mid-Sixties to the Mid-Seventies." He completed three books: "Queer Theatre;" "The Theatre of Visions: Robert Wilson;" and the two volume "Peter Schumann's Bread and Puppet Theatre." In addition to writing about the theater world, Stefan Brecht befriended and supported many playwrights and theater collectives; he also participated in productions as a performer. Although Brecht additionally published many articles and two books of poems, a large portion of his writing remains unpublished. Brecht died on April 13, 2009.