SCHRDER, FRIEDRICH LUDWIG

born Nov. 3, 1744, Schwerin, Mecklenburg [now in Germany] died Sept. 3, 1816, Rellingen German actor, theatrical manager, and playwright, the first to bring the plays of William Shakespeare to the German stage. Schrder began his career as a child actor in the company of his stepfather, Konrad Ernst Ackermann, learning what he could from his stepfather, who was a remarkable comedian, and from his mother, actress Sophie Schrder. His decisive inspiration, however, came from Konrad Ekhof (q.v.), who had joined Ackermann's company in 1764. In 1771 Schrder became the manager of the Hamburg National Theatre, where he remained for nine years. Highlights of his first Hamburg period were his Shakespearean productions, in which he played the ghost of Hamlet's father, Hamlet, Iago, Shylock, Lear, Falstaff, and Macbeth. He established himself as the leading German actor of the period. He also presented to Hamburg audiences the early dramas of J.W. von GoetheGtz von Berlichingen, Clavigo, and Stellaand the plays of such other Shakespeare-inspired Sturm und Drang dramatists as Friedrich Maximilian von Klinger and Heinrich Leopold Wagner. From England he imported Edward Moore's Gamester and George Lillo's London Merchant. Schrder left Hamburg in 1780 and spent four years at the Vienna Burgtheater, where he created the basis of the ensemble acting for which that company later became known. From 1785 to 1798 he was again director of the Hamburg theatre, where he produced many of the plays he had written in Vienna.