Çetin İpekkaya

Çetin İpekkaya — Biography

Çetin İpekkaya was born on 15 April 1937 in Diyarbakır. Interested in theatre from his school days at Galatasaray, he helped found the Genç Oyuncular company in 1957 and, while studying French language and literature at Istanbul University, won a directing scholarship in France with Muhsin Ertuğrul's backing, training in Paris at a theatre school led by Jean Vilar.

In the early 1960s he worked at the Arena Theatre and helped found Kent Oyuncuları; after opening his own theatre in Kadıköy, he became a director and actor at the Istanbul City Theatres from 1964 and also taught stagecraft at Istanbul University's State Conservatory. When the 1980 coup ended his position in Turkey, he moved to Germany and led a Berlin theatre company he founded, Tiyatrom; he later won back his City Theatres post through a lawsuit and kept teaching at a Berlin arts university.

Over a career of more than four decades he wrote three plays, acted on stage in 42 productions and directed 118, and appeared on screen in films such as Adak, Kobay, Hekim İbn-i Sina, Evet, ich will! and Heil, plus the long-running German series Lindenstraße. Married with three children, he died in Berlin in 2016.