Ruhrfestspiele (Ruhr Festival) in Recklinghausen, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, is one of the oldest theatre festivals in Europe. Founded after World War II, the festival is a major annual cultural event for the Ruhr area. It always starts on 1 May and is funded by the city of Recklinghausen and the labour union Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund (DGB). The festival comprises performances from European performers and theatre companies, and aims to bring different art forms, languages and cultures together. The main venue is the , which has won awards for its architecture. History The festival originated in the postwar winter of 1946/47, when Hamburg theatres were unable to heat their premises and sent representatives to the Ruhr valley to "organize" coal. Miners of the in the Recklinghausen suburb of Suderwich are said to have been helpful, which led to the pit being called the cradle of the Ruhrfestspiele (Wiege der Ruhrfestspiele). In return, performers from the Deutsches Schauspielhaus, Thalia Theater and the Staatsoper Hamburg held performances at the Städtischer Saalbau hall in Recklinghausen in mid-1947 under the slogan "Kunst gegen Kohle" (Art for Coal). In 1948, the DGB labour union and the city founded a company to organize the first festival, that started with a performance of Goethe's Faust I. The state of North Rhine-Westfalia has supported the festival since 1949. The festival traditionally starts on 1 May. Drama performances are complemented by concerts, art exhibits and political events. Operas were not performed after 1953 due to technical limitations of the Saalbau building. On 3 June 1961 construction started of a new hall, the Ruhrfestspielhaus, financed by the Friends of the Ruhrfestspiele (Freunde der Ruhrfestspiele), an association founded by Theodor Heuss. The building's architecture is influenced by the Bauhaus. The first performances in the new building took place in 1965. The program grew more political in the 1960s and 1970s, showing performances of independent ensembles such as the Grips-Theater and the , and plays by Bertolt Brecht. Beginning in 1990, the festival was expanded to a Europäisches Theater (European Theater). The new director Hansgünther Heyme, who shaped the festival until 2003, invited companies from European countries "from the Atlantic to the Urals", in an effort to counteract growing nationalism and xenophobia. He set mottos for the each festival, in 1991 it was "Foundations of Empire"(Reichs-Gründungen), in 1993 "25 Years after 1968" (Aufbrüche – 25 Jahre nach ’68), in the 50th anniversary year of