!!!Laienspiel

Lay theatre (Laienspiel), theatre played by non-professional actors, 
especially groups of school children, students, workers, people in 
rural communities etc. In the German-speaking countries particularly 
promoted by the Youth Movement after 1900; strove to keep separate 
from professional theatre and theatrical societies, developed its own 
styles and used its own texts. In Austria, groups of lay actors banded 
together after World War I and performed medieval mystery plays and 
legends as well as religious plays by contemporary authors (R.  Kralik 
and M.  Mell and others) in front of churches and on public squares. 
Leading groups were the "Spielleute Gottes", theatre groups 
of the "Christlich-Deutsche Volksbuehne"founded in 1913, and 
the "Wiener Schottenspiele" performed by pupils of the 
Schottengymnasium secondary school directed by G.  Terramare in the 
1920s.

!Literature
R. Mirbt, Laienspiele und Laientheater, 1960; P. 
Wolfersdorf, Stilformen des Laienspiels, 1962; H. Zoepfl, Das 
nichtprofessionelle Theater in Oberoesterreich, doctoral thesis, 
Vienna 1976; U. Hasch, Studien zu neuen Stroemungen im Laienspiel und 
Laientheater, doctoral thesis, Vienna 1982.


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