Elmar Cichy is Academy Director of the Bavarian Academy of Dramatic Arts (Akademie für Darstellende Kunst Bayern - ADK Bayern) and Principal of the state-accredited Specialist Academy for Acting, Stage Direction and Theater Education (Fachakademie für Schauspiel, Regie und Theaterpädagogik), Regensburg. He is an expert in acting techniques.
Cichy began studying Acting at the tender age of 17 under Uta Hagen at the HB Studio in New York. Broadway actors at the studio provide training according to the Uta Hagen method. The studio has produced countless outstanding actors, including Anne Bancroft, Matthew Broderick, Robert De Niro, Whoopi Goldberg, Jack Lemmon and Al Pacino. Cichy then completed a private course of Acting studies in Munich. He gained film experience at the New York University and with the Bavarian broadcast company Bayerischer Rundfunk. He had been performing on stage since the age of 7.
While pursuing his acting ambitions, he also completed a teacher training course and passed the state examination. In these studies, he specialized not only in Pedagogy, Didactics and Psychology, but also in Philosophy and Catholic Theology. A psychology grant enabled him to spend a prolonged study period in Bergen, Norway.
A native of Regensburg, in 2001 Elmar Cichy founded the Schauspielwerkstatt Regensburg (Regensburg Acting Workshop), a theater education institute with classes and workshops for children, adolescents and adults as well as coaching for corporate and private individuals, which he directed very successfully until 2008.
In 2001, Cichy also co-founded the Schauspielschule Regensburg (Regensburg School of Acting), of which he was appointed director in 2007. This was a private specialized vocational school. Expanding on this, in 2010 Cichy founded the Specialist Academy for Acting, Stage Direction and Theater Education Regensburg, and assumed the directorship thereof from its inception. The Academy is now state-accredited and is funded by the State of Bavaria and the City of Regensburg, and is therefore able to provide training for students free of charge.
Photos: Juliane Zitzlsperger