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Franz Xaver Kroetz in 2006

Franz Xaver Kroetz (born 25 February 1946, Munich) is a German author, playwright, actor and film director.

He is also known for his role as the gossip columnist 'Baby' Schimmerlos (roughly 'Dull Baby') in the television series Kir Royal.

Life

Kroetz attended an acting school in Munich and the Max-Reinhardt-Seminar in Vienna. He worked as a day-laborer and was active in the German political party DKP, Germany Communist Party, from 1971 to 1980.

He became famous when in 1971 the premiere of his plays Heimarbeit (Home-work) and Hartnäckig (Persistent) were disrupted by neo-fascists. His plays in the 1970s portrayed people who had been rendered speechless by their own social misery. In the play Das Nest (The Nest), the protagonist is a truck driver. His boss orders him to dump toxic waste into a lake, thus soiling his "nest."

On March 5, 1992, Kroetz married the actress Marie-Theres Relin. They have three children and live in Altenmarkt in Chiemgau.

Stage plays

• Der Drang
• Heimarbeit, 1971
• Hartnäckig, 1971
• Wildwechsel, 1971
• Lieber Fritz, 1972
• Männersache, 1972
• Stallerhof, 1972
• Oberösterreich, 1972
• Globales Interesse, 1972
• Maria Magdalena, 1972
• Münchner Kindl, 1973
• Geisterbahn, 1975
• Das Nest, 1975
• Agnes Bernauer, 1977
• Mensch Meier, 1978
• Der stramme Max, 1980
• Nicht Fisch nicht Fleisch, 1981

Films

• Series "Kir Royal"; this series was produced by WDR from 1984/85 but first appeared in 1986.

Plays

The following were translated by Michael Roloff and publihed by Urizen Books in 1976

• Stallerhof (Farmyard)
• Michies Blut (Michi's Blood)
• Maennersache (Men's Business)
• Ein Mann ein Woerterbuch (A Man a Dictionary)

Translated by Roger Downey

• Request Concert Durch die Blaetter (Through the Leaves [the final version of what started out as "Men's Business"]
• Das Nest (The Nest)

Alternative English translations exist of some of the above and other Kroetz plays.

Awards

• Bertolt-Brecht-Literaturpreis 1995