Helmut Frye

Because guiding people standing in the spotlight has been a major part of my forty years working as a teacher at a German “Gymnasium“ in the subjects of English and Geography, and – for almost fifty years now – as an actor, a director and a choreographer in countless drama groups, staging more or less everything from Shakespeare’s “Macbeth“  to Queen’s  “We Will Rock You“. (Presently, I am playing the part of a crazy Colonel in “Der Gelbe Pullover“ – why not come and see our production at Staatsschauspiel Nuremberg on July 7?)

Looking at what people say and do on stage is what I have been doing for the bigger part of my life, encouraging them not to become someone completely different but to discover and develop the gifts and talents they hold within themselves, sometimes actually not knowing they exist.

Admittedly, I have grown old in the course of all those years. I was born in 1950, I am a father of five, I have two grandchildren, I am married to a wonderful, much younger wife, I live in a beautiful house with an enchanting garden in a quiet village – but still, I am not tired, not worn-out, not misanthropic, no, I am still interested in what’s going on, what’s coming up, how the young and the old can live on in an era of “disruption and change“, and what my contribution in this process can be.