The theatre designed by the architect Eduard Titz which opened the doors of its elegant building in 1850 was initially conceived as a place of entertainment, free of any intellectual claims. The core of its repertoire comprised mainly farces and operettas. In the early 1900s, however, the director Otto Brahm made the company change its course towards shockingly naturalist style. And by 1905, when one of the greatest German directors Max Reinhardt, known for his concept of the theatre as a grand-scale celebration, took the helm, the spectator was already ready to encounter a completely different - fresh and provocative - theatre. It was also during Reinhardt's reign that a new modern-design chamber auditorium was set up. In the 21st century, this is one of the most powerful German theatre companies, performing a repertoire of great classic productions. And it is also the only theatre in Berlin where it is impossible to buy tickets to certain productions literally for years. Jürgen Gosch's Seagull, a radically minimalist production centred exclusively on the work of the actors, is among them. The ensemble of the Berlin Deutsches Theater is definitely among the most powerful in Europe; the theatre is nicknamed 'the German theatre Olympus' in the theatre circles.