For all of them, it began with everything standing still: the present year’s crop of graduating stage directors at the Max Reinhardt Seminar—Manuel Horak, Lukas Schöppl, and Florian Thiel—commenced their studies at the height of the pandemic. That period’s outward stasis had given rise to an inner urge to move forward—and all three, with their starkly differing life histories up to then, took and passed the entrance examination for the Max Reinhardt Seminar’s stage directing programme.

“It’s the source of my energy and existence—I wouldn’t ever want to do anything else, not even if I had a thousand options to choose from.” When Ira Süssenbach talks about her work as a stage director, her love of theatre is downright palpable. This fourth-year stage directing student at the Max Reinhardt Seminar spoke with mdw Magazine about her diploma production.