ACKERMANN (1740)

Konrad Ernst Ackermann was an actor-manager, a leading figure in the development of German theatre.


In 1740 he joined the company of Johan Friedrich Schönemann in Lüneburg. Schönemann specialized in German adaptations of the French plays of Corneille, Racine, Molière, and Voltaire, and Ackermann´s initial training as an actor was along formal lines. In 1749 he married Sophie Charlotte Schröder, the leading lady of Schönemann´s company, and with her and a good troupe toured in Rusia, the Baltic states, ald East Prusia for many years, until the Seven Years War forced him to move to the south and into Switzerland.


Gradually Ackermann developed a taste for domestic drama and a technique for parts in which he could mingle the comic and the sentimental. In 1765, with Konrad Ekhof in his company, he built a modest playhouse in Hamburg. By opening night he was heavily in debt, dissesion gripped his company, and the next year he had to lease his theatre, not regaining control over it until two years later. Shortly before his death he turned the management over to his stepson, Friedrich Ludwig Schröder, who was to bring Shakespeare to the German stage.