Short answers, pulled from the story.
Bertolt Brecht was a German playwright, poet, and theatre theorist born on the 10th of February 1898 in Augsburg, Germany. He is best known for developing epic theatre and the Verfremdungseffekt (estrangement effect), and for plays including The Threepenny Opera, Mother Courage and Her Children, Life of Galileo, and The Caucasian Chalk Circle.
The Verfremdungseffekt, often translated as the defamiliarization or distancing effect, is Brecht's technique of stripping a theatrical event of its self-evident, familiar quality to create astonishment and critical awareness in the audience. Practical methods included actors addressing the audience directly, harsh stage lighting, songs interrupting the action, and explanatory placards.
The Threepenny Opera was a 1928 adaptation of John Gay's The Beggar's Opera of 1728, with lyrics by Brecht set to music by Kurt Weill. It became the biggest hit in Berlin in the 1920s and was a major influence on the development of musical theatre worldwide. Its most famous lines attacked the hypocrisy of conventional morality in the face of working-class hunger.
Brecht fled Nazi Germany in February 1933, shortly after Hitler came to power. He lived in Denmark for six years, then moved to Sweden, Finland, and ultimately to Southern California in May 1941, where he worked as a screenwriter and lived in the Los Angeles beach suburb of Santa Monica.
On the 30th of October 1947, Brecht testified to the House Un-American Activities Committee that he had never been a member of the Communist Party, deflecting questions through jokes and references to the translation process. HUAC vice-chairman Karl Mundt thanked him for his cooperation. The day after testifying, Brecht left the United States and never returned.
Brecht's collaborations with Kurt Weill had a documented influence on rock and folk music. The Doors recorded "Alabama Song," originally a Brecht poem set to music by Weill, on their debut album, as did David Bowie. Bob Dylan wrote in his memoir that hearing "Pirate Jenny" from The Threepenny Opera at a New York show was an epiphany that prompted him to begin writing his own songs.