The Soviet city Engels, capital of the Volga German Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, had a large theatre, the Deutsches Staatstheater from 1931 with seating for an audience of 800. The director Erwin Piscator had the idea of establishing a centre for German-language emigrant theatre there. A similar plan in Moscow had already failed. At the same time, film production facilities on a par with Hollywood were also to be developed thus providing the actors with additional work opportunities. Piscator wanted to bring theatre people and film-makers to Engels from their European places of exile.

Many famous actors already lived in the USSR, for example, Alexander Granach, Carola Neher, Hermann Greid, Lotte Loebinger, Ernst Busch, Bernhard Reich, Maxim Vallentin, Gustav von Wangenheim and Piscator himself. From Switzerland he hoped to attract Karl Paryla, Leonard Steckel, Steckel’s wife Jo Mihaly and Wolfgang Langhoff, and from Scandinavia Helene Weigel and Guido Reif. Even Bertolt Brecht toyed with the idea of settling there. 

In cooperation with German emigrants, plays such as William Shakespeare’s As You Like It, Henrik Ibsen’s Nora and Molière’s The Imaginary Invalid were brought to the stage in Engels. However, Piscator’s plans were frustrated by drawbacks which had to do with the poor living conditions in the region, resistance to his notion of theatre, fear of the competition by a local amateur troupe and general political developments in the Soviet Union.