Wittenberg has a long tradition of cultural events. The City Theatre (Mitteldeutsches Landestheater) reached a great importance in GDR times. Since 1996, the City has staged open-air theatre shows based on the Lutheran history still alive in many historical places of the ancient town. As highlights, in 2001 and 2005, Fernando Scarpa became the artistic director of the "B�hne Wittenberg" (Stage Wittenberg), a project for theatre, art and culture in the whole of Germany which attracts to the city plenty of audience and whose success achieves European echo. On 2002 and 2003 Stefano Vagnini, Italian composer and organist created the music for Thesys and Luther Stories. Prince Hamlet is said to have studied in Wittenberg and it was the supposed home of Dr Faustus
