One of Germany's most important theatres, internationally known under director Thomas Ostermeier for bold, contemporary stagings of the classics and new drama. The company tours the world's festivals, and many productions carry English surtitles, making it one of the few Berlin stages genuinely accessible to non-German speakers.
The building is half the attraction: the Universum, a streamlined Expressionist cinema designed by Erich Mendelsohn in 1928, its long curved façade a landmark of the western Kurfürstendamm. Converted into a flexible three-auditorium theatre in the 1970s, it remains one of the finest pieces of Weimar-era architecture still in daily use in the city.