{"id":13138,"date":"2026-02-25T14:07:27","date_gmt":"2026-02-25T13:07:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mdw.ac.at\/magazin\/?p=13138"},"modified":"2026-02-25T14:07:27","modified_gmt":"2026-02-25T13:07:27","slug":"wenn-bilder-buehne-werden","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mdw.ac.at\/magazin\/2026\/02\/25\/wenn-bilder-buehne-werden\/?lang=en","title":{"rendered":"When Images Themselves Become the Stage"},"content":{"rendered":"
Just two-and-a-half months into teaching at the Max Reinhardt Seminar, and one\u2019s already asked to take stock: it can only be mdw Magazine <\/i>that\u2019s asking! In response, Magdalena Gut\u2014who began teaching courses on stage design and scenography in October 2025\u2014both gladly and adeptly provided us with answers and insights on a field of foremost significance to theatre that\u2019s all too often relegated more than just literally to the background in the performances to which actors and directors give rise.<\/h5>\n

Without the practitioners of that craft which transforms stages into images and images into stages, stages themselves would seem rather naked. Magdalena Gut is one such practitioner. Since 1998, Gut has been working with great success at renowned theatres and opera houses in the German-speaking region and farther afield as a stage and costume designer, thereby pursuing a personal passion that captivated her as a teenager and has kept hold of her ever since.<\/p>\n

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Magdalena Gut, \u00a9 Agnieszka Patela<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cBack when I was 14, I had a pivotal experience: I got invited to see Woyzeck<\/i>\u2014at the Burgtheater, I think\u2014in a production by Achim Freyer. I experienced it as this totally incomprehensible world. The play itself isn\u2019t particularly accessible to begin with, and that particular production made it all very cryptical. It was so mysterious that I ended up fascinated beyond all measure, owed simply to how I felt like I didn\u2019t understand it,\u201d says Gut of her initial introduction to theatre\u2014which she would proceed to make one of the important contexts of her youth and ultimately land on as her preferred medium.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt just really captivated me. When I thought about what profession I might like to pursue, I realised that with my interests in language, text, images, and space, stage design would be the ideal medium through which I could unite them all.\u201d Enticed by this \u201cconcentrate\u201d of everything she was interested in, Magdalena Gut ultimately enrolled in the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna\u2019s programme for stage and costume design.<\/p>\n

After graduating from her studies there, Gut felt drawn back into academic life again and again. She went on to teach scenography at places including her alma mater, and she also worked with students at the University of Arts Linz. Today, she teaches stage design at the Max Reinhardt Seminar\u2014a mission that now claims a central place in her life alongside her artistic activities as a stage and costume designer at various theatres in German-speaking countries as well as in Poland, her country of birth.<\/p>\n

One new thing for Gut in her present position at the Max Reinhardt Seminar is how it\u2019s about training not aspiring stage designers but theatre directing students. \u201cThat\u2019s a different job\u2014because it\u2019s clear to me how, for my students, the point is not to design stage spaces themselves but to develop an understanding that helps them work with and effectively use spaces in their productions. Just like they learn to work with actors, they should also learn to work with spaces.\u201d Part of Gut\u2019s concern is to convey how directors can \u201cspeak, communicate, and express what\u2019s important to them\u201d when working with stage designers\u2014and, not unimportantly, \u201cthat they also learn how to give their partners the latitude they need to develop freely.\u201d<\/p>\n

A further focus in Gut\u2019s teaching is to guide students toward the formulation of their own individual aesthetics. \u201dMy desire is to ultimately support their ability to ask the right questions as well as to perhaps also provide clues that enable them to make their own decisions and refine how they access the aesthetic realm.\u201d She also finds it important to avoid making students feel like they have to adhere to any particular aesthetic: \u201cAesthetics change constantly, after all. So I think the point is more to find some essence of one\u2019s own and develop one\u2019s own ways of working.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Ludzie Bezdomni (Menschen ohne Obdach), Teatr Gliwice (Gleiwitz)\/Polen, 2025 \u00a9 Michal Buksa Ludzie Bezdomni (The Homeless), Teatr Gliwice \/ Gliwice, Poland, 2025 \u00a9 Michal Buksa<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

What\u2019s more, Magdalena Gut would like to guide her students through a fundamental exploration of questions such as: \u201cWhat is space? What do I need it for? Why stage design? What does it mean? In what dimension? And is it always something that\u2019s built, or occasionally something different?\u201d She points out how the primary thing for aspiring stage directors isn\u2019t to design stage scenery or theatrical spaces by themselves but simply \u201cto know about these scenographic processes, to be aware of what takes place when someone conceives of a space and realises something there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Magdalena Gut\u2019s own artistic career has seen her \u201crealise\u201d and bring to life a multitude of such spaces. \u201cThere\u2019ve been several spaces or spatial solutions that I\u2019ve found hugely fulfilling for a variety of reasons, though it\u2019s often my most recent work with which I still have a particularly strong emotional connection.\u201d Some of the happiest moments in her own pursuits, says Magdalena Gut, arise when an idea of her own\u2014one she knew would present a challenge\u2014actually pays off. \u201cOr when it even ends up paying off way more than I\u2019d originally thought.\u201d<\/p>\n

The ways in which she approaches things usually look similar: initial sketches get turned into models, \u201cwhereupon you\u2019ve built a small-scale world and figured out what kinds of movement could take place therein.\u201d The resulting world becomes especially interesting, she says, when actors enter the scene. \u201cActors bring life into the space, moving around within it and perhaps also doing things you wouldn\u2019t have thought possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

Being surprised is something Magdalena finds desirable both as a audience member and in her own work. \u201cAs an theatregoer, I do want to have my viewing habits disrupted or challenged in some sense.\u201d And it\u2019s when something she\u2019s \u201cdiscovered or invented\u201d in a project of her own ends up inspiring her, the director, or even the actors, when they do things she perhaps hadn\u2019t imagined, that it feels truly right and \u201clively\u201d.<\/p>\n

Symbiotic collaboration between all participants is something she finds particularly valuable. \u201cLet\u2019s say that I do like putting in my two cents at the directorial level. For me, it\u2019s not simply about providing an aesthetic framework that then gets filled; I\u2019m also fond of being involved in the rehearsal processes and the overall production, and I enjoy engaging in continual exchange.\u201d<\/p>\n

Such proximity to and close exchange with directorial personalities was also one major aspect that made teaching at the Max Reinhardt Seminar so attractive to Gut. \u201cWhen I learned that this job would entail working together with directing students, with me starting from my position as a stage designer, they from theirs as directing students, and the dialogue in between, it became clear to me that it was one I\u2019d say yes to.\u201d She considers it essential to convey such dialogue\u2019s urgent significance \u201din order that we don\u2019t tend to think, \u2018This is mine, that\u2019s yours, and we\u2019ll meet somewhere in the middle,\u2019 but instead inspire each other as to how we can make use of something and then work very much as a team to implement it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is also why one does theatre in the first place,\u201d adds Gut. For her, it\u2019s always about close collaboration, the symbiosis of ideas, and giving rise to something shared based on differing requirements. \u201cI\u2019m really glad to be working with directing students who are extremely interested, eager to get talking, and totally motivated to work on their projects.\u201d Gut also notes consistently great interest in her own work on the part of her students. \u201cOne of the things I love about what I do here is how I have to very thoroughly scrutinise my own way of working in order to figure out how I can explain it to someone else in a way they can understand.\u201d When speaking about her own works in class, Magdalena Gut always tries to share experiences and information of a universal nature. And alongside explaining what various things are (\u201cWhat\u2019s a tech rehearsal? What\u2019s a fly loft? What\u2019s under-stage machinery?\u201d), she\u2019s also giving real-life practice its due\u2014from visiting the workshops of the theatre service company ART for ART to group projects with stage design students as part of the directing practica and on to planned festival visits together with students.<\/p>\n

All these activities are set to grow even more intense for Magdalena Gut over the next few months. And for the moment, she\u2019s put her own involvement in stage productions and artistic projects on the back burner to concentrate fully on her teaching at the Max Reinhardt Seminar. \u201cSince I don\u2019t have any theatrical projects planned for the time being, I can comfortably shift my focus even further in this direction\u2014and I\u2019m now looking forward to settling in here a bit more!\u201d","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Just two-and-a-half months into teaching at the Max Reinhardt Seminar, and one\u2019s already asked to take stock: it can only be mdw Magazine that\u2019s asking! In response, Magdalena Gut\u2014who began teaching courses on stage design and scenography in October 2025\u2014both gladly and adeptly provided us with answers and insights on a field of foremost significance to theatre that\u2019s all too often relegated more than just literally to the background in the performances to which actors and directors give rise.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":346,"featured_media":13141,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[1638,1643,810,81],"class_list":["post-13138","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-drama","tag-2026-1","tag-buehnenbild","tag-maxreinhardtseminar","tag-theater"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mdw.ac.at\/magazin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13138","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mdw.ac.at\/magazin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mdw.ac.at\/magazin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mdw.ac.at\/magazin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/346"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mdw.ac.at\/magazin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13138"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.mdw.ac.at\/magazin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13138\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13249,"href":"https:\/\/www.mdw.ac.at\/magazin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13138\/revisions\/13249"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mdw.ac.at\/magazin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13141"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mdw.ac.at\/magazin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13138"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mdw.ac.at\/magazin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13138"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mdw.ac.at\/magazin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13138"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}