What has become of us—30 dreams and 17 years later？ A long story， above all. No， thirty stories. Some of us are well-known， almost famous. Andrea and April for instance. One has played in a TV opera for years， and the other is the only woman in the actors’ team in Saturday’s quiz show. Some of us have vanished， like Mafia and Mathias. Mafia， who could dance and play the piano so beautifully， simply didn’t return after the vacation in the first year. Mathias， now running a sound studio in Vienna， finally realized that“my ambitions were perhaps a little excessive.”By saying this， he preserved himself from a life—lie with which too many bad actors console themselves： that they are unlucky to be unrecognized， and that if the right director turned up， their immense talent would be appreciated.
Perhaps those are absolutely everyday stories as could be told at any time of any class at any drama school. However， 2 stories of our class stand out， one sad and one wonderful.
The sad story. Eberhard Schmidt had too little time to realize his dreams. He wanted to become a great director and he had already got quite a way as assistant to some eminent directors. He died of AIDS 8 years ago. I only met him once again， at Frankfurt a year before his death.
We were linked because our names followed one another in the alphabet. He was Schmidt and I am Schneider. We were called forward in couples for the 6 tests we had to undergo before both were accepted in the drama school. To begin with of course we were enemies， competitors for one of at most twelve training places per class. The further we got， Schmidt and Schneider， the more we hoped that the other would not be left behind. When we both got through， we embraced. For the first time. And for the second time in Frankfurt when saying good-bye forever.
The wonderful story. Sven Bechtolf is for the moment the only one of us about whom it can already be said that he has achieved even more than we all dared dream at the time. In 1996， he was chosen best director of the year. That was really something.