TANKRED DORST WAS BORN IN the small town of Sonneberg, Thuringia, in 1925. In 1944, at the age of seventeen, he was conscripted into the German army and sent to the Western Front. He was taken prisoner by the Allies and interned successively in Belgium, England, and the United States. Upon his release, he set out to complete his interrupted education. In 1950 he graduated from the Gymnasium and thereafter studied German literature, theater, and art history at the University of Munich. He joined a student puppet theater company and contributed plays to its repertoire. At the same time he was working for a publishing house and also trying his hand at writing scripts for educational films.

In two early publications, Geheimnis der Marionette (1957) and Auf kleiner Bühne — Versuch mit Marionetten (1959), he described and evaluated his experiences with the puppet theater. The second of these books contains texts, illustrations, sketches, reflections, and the puppet play, A Trumpet for Nap, which had been produced on television.

His first full-length drama was Gesellschaft im Herbst (1960), a comedy, performed in Mannheim and Hamburg; it was followed that same year by two one-act farces, Die Kurve and Freiheit für Clemens. Die Kurve was the more successful. Even more acclaimed was the oneact play, Große Schmährede an der Stadtmauer (1961), first performed in Lübeck. Die Mohrin, a comedy based on the French medieval story of Aucassin and Nicolette, appeared in 1964.

Besides plays, Dorst has written libretti for operas: La Buffonata (1960), a ballet opera, commissioned by the South German Television Network, with music by Wilhelm Killmayer; Yolimba oder die Grenzen der Magie (1964), music by Wilhelm Killmayer; and Die Geschichte von Aucassin und Nicolette (1969) with music by Günter Bialas.

Dorst has also adapted for the contemporary theater Ludwig Tieck's romantic comedy Der gestiefelte Kater oder Wie man das Spiel spielt (1964) and translated many plays, including Diderot's Rameaus Neffe (1962), O’Casey's Der Preispokal (1967), and Molière's Der Geizige (1967) and Der eingebildete Kranke (1968). At present he is working on the script for a new motion picture film.

His most important accomplishment to date has been the drama Toller (first performed in Stuttgart in November 1968).