Celebrating Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956)

The governing communist party in former East Germany, the SED, was officially founded at a convention in the Admiralspalast in 1955.

Austrian director Klaus Maria Brandauer (left) and rock star Campino, who will take the role of Mack the Knife in Brandauer's version of Brecht's "Threepenny Opera."

Carmen-Maja Antoni (center) from the Berliner Ensemble was "The Mother."

Polly (Stefanie Stappenbeck) found herself surrounded by gangsters.

"The Threepenny Opera" premiered here in the Schiffbauerdamm Theater in 1928.

What would Brecht have been without his women? The dramatist had two wives, including Helene Weigel (here in the title role in "Mother Courage"), and many affairs. He worked together with most of the women he was involved with and it has been said that he depending on their criticism, inspiration and feedback.

Ulrich Tukur as Mack the Knife, and "his girls."

Renovations on the Friedrichstrasse theater in Berlin came down to the wire. The city building commission didn't authorize it for public use until Thursday, August 10 -- one day before the premiere of "The Threepenny Opera."

Brecht's parable play "The Resistable Rise of Arturo Ui" was performed at Die Blechbüchse Theater in Zinnowitz in 2005. He wrote the piece from exile in Finland in 1941.

Rock singer Campino (left) from Tote Hosen is making his theatrical debut as Mack the Knife.

Beggars, prostitutes and thieves take center stage in Brecht's politically charged "Three Penny Opera."

Klaus Maria Brandauer's production of Brecht's anti-capitalist "Three Penny Opera" in the Admiralpalast theater received private funding -- from the Deutsche Bank.

"The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny" (completed in 1929) was performed at the 1998 Salzburg Festival. Roy Cornelius Smith, Gwyneth Jones and Wilbur Pauley (left to right) headlined.

Bertolt Brecht in 1956, the year he died.

There is a Bertolt Brecht memorial statue in front of Berlin's Admiralspalast, where "The Threepenny Opera" opens Friday, August 11.

The "red scare" was just beginning in the United States when Brecht arrived in 1947. Two years later he was asked to appear before the House Un-American Activities Committee, which had concerns about his communist leaning. Brecht denied ever being a member of a communist party.

Ulrich Tukur played the legendary Mack the Knife and Stefanie Stappenbeck was Polly in this 2004 performance of "The Threepenny Opera" in Hamburg. Kurt Weill wrote the music for this classic gangster piece about poverty and the failures of capitalism.

Irina Kastrinidis, Volker Spengler, Hendrik Arnst and Rosalind Baffoe (left to right) star in this 2006 performance of "In the Jungle of the Cities" at the Volksbühne in Berlin.