Johann Friedrich Schink was born in Magdeburg and studied theology at the University of Halle. After moving to Berlin in 1776, he soon abandoned the priesthood for poetry and playwriting. His talent for imitation and pastiche, as well as his sound knowledge of the constraints of dramatic writing, brought him a certain renown and the prize of twenty Golden Friedrichs for his tragedy Gianetta Montaldi, which was created in Hamburg in 1777. Schink wrote at a rapid pace. In the same period, the two satirical plays in the Marionettentheater collection (1778) were published: "Hanswurst von Salzburg" and "Der Staupbesen". In the same year, his critique of the actor Brockmann's interpretation of the role of Hamlet in Shakespeare's play earned him full recognition as a dramatist. He returned to this subject in 1799 with a new play for puppets, Prinz Hamlet von Dännemark. In the meantime, he moved to Hanover, then to Vienna and Graz, where he critiqued - and satirized - the Austrian stage. At the time of writing Prinz Hamlet, he was living in Ratzeburg near Lübeck. Plays from this period, including Johann Faust (1804), were not as successful. Schink returned to Berlin after the end of the Napoleonic campaigns, and in 1819 received a pension and a position as librarian in Żagań, where he died in 1835, three years after Goethe.