An immersive theater performance transformed Shakespeare’s sonnets into living vignettes, honoring Max Reinhardt’s legacy and uniting young actors in Salzburg
At Schloss Leopoldskron, the spirit of Shakespeare was brought to life in a unique musical-poetic journey, "Reinhardt probt Shakespeare" ("Reinhardt rehearses Shakespeare"). Conceived and directed by Michael Sturminger in collaboration with Alexandra Althoff, the two-hour performance transformed Shakespeare’s timeless sonnets into a moving theater performance, weaving poetry, music, and history into a single immersive evening.
The production formed part of an intensive theater experience, where selected students of the Max Reinhardt Seminar in Vienna were given the opportunity to reside at the Schloss and rehearse their own interpretations through a creative process. This year’s focus was Shakespeare’s sonnets, whose lyrical brilliance lent themselves naturally to becoming short dramatic vignettes and intimate scenes. Performed in both German and English, the project honored Shakespeare’s universality and Max Reinhardt's artistic legacy.
A collaboration between Salzburg Global, the Max Reinhardt Seminar of the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna, and the Lausitz Festival, the event continued a tradition now in its third year of bringing young performers to Salzburg. The program is as much about education and experimentation as about performance: It seeks to extend artistic horizons and carry Max Reinhardt’s legacy into the present day. Reinhardt, who once called Schloss Leopoldskron his “greatest production,” is honored through this project as both host and inspiration.
The sonnets were brought to life by rising actors Crispin Hausmann, Jan Henri Müller, Leonie Pum, Klaudia Sobota, Flo Sohn, Leonard Tondorf, Sarah Wockenfuß, Wojo van Brouwer, and Claudia Renner. Together, they gave voice to Shakespeare’s meditations on love, time, mortality, and art - topics that remain deeply resonant across centuries.
The format invited the audience to travel in small groups through ten scenes set in different rooms of the Schloss. In the Marble Hall, the grandeur of Sonnet 18’s immortal “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” resonated with warmth and elegance. In the Venetian Salon, Sonnet 20’s playful exploration of gender took on a fresh interpretation. The chapel gave new poignancy to meditations on loss and remembrance, while staircases and salons echoed with jealousy, longing, and humor. The result was a creative and immersive journey through Shakespeare’s poetic world, mirrored in the architecture of the Schloss itself.
As Max Reinhardt himself once observed, “Shakespeare is the greatest and utterly incomparable stroke of luck for the theater.” This production proved the truth of that statement: By merging Shakespeare’s lyrical voice with the living spaces of Schloss Leopoldskron, "Reinhardt probt Shakespeare" reaffirmed theater’s ability to bridge past and present. It was an evening where poetry moved beside the audience, and where four-hundred-year-old words felt vibrantly alive.
Please download the performance's program here.
Watch a news segment about the performance from ORF Salzburg.
The evening was made possible through an executive partnership with Land Salzburg, and sponsorship by Raffeisen Salzburg Private Banking and Bankhaus Spängler.
View full set on Flickr
