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53-557: Max Reinhardt ( German: [maks ˈʁaɪnhaʁt] ; born Maximilian Goldmann ; 9 September 1873 – 30 October 1943) was an Austrian-born theatre and film director , intendant , and theatrical producer . With his radically innovative and avant-garde stage productions, Reinhardt is regarded as one of the most prominent stage directors of the early 20th century. For example, Reinhardt's 1917 stage premiere of Reinhard Sorge 's Kleist Prize -winning stage play Der Bettler almost single-handedly gave birth to Expressionism in

106-462: A 'slice of life.'" According to Walter H. Sokel, "The lighting apparatus behaves like the mind. It drowns in darkness what it wishes to forget and bathes in light what it wishes to recall. Thus the entire stage becomes a universe of [the] mind, and the individual scenes are not replicas of three-densional physical reality, but visualizes stages of thought." Reinhardt's production of the play, which he had meticulously planned ever since he had purchased

159-411: A graduate programme based on the premise that directors are autodidacts who need as many opportunities to direct as possible. Under Fowler, graduate student directors would stage between five and ten productions during their three-year residencies, with each production receiving detailed critiques. As with many other professions in the performing arts, theatre directors would often learn their skills "on

212-476: A lagoon in moonlight. Isle of the Blessed attracted attention due to its erotic nature. Its ancient mythical setting included sea gods, nymphs, and fauns, and the actors appeared naked. However, the film also fit in with the strict customs of the late German and Austrian empires. The actors had to live up to the demands of double roles. Wilhelm Diegelmann and Willy Prager played the bourgeois fathers as well as

265-610: A military station as a part of the near Limes Romanus on the Danube . The first written mention about the town was in 1269 in a document of the King Béla IV under name Ztumpa . In the second half of the 13th century the now-ruined Pajštún Castle in the Little Carpathians was built. It was developing mainly as an agricultural and trading settlement. The name of the town comes from the pressing mills called stupa on

318-486: A show has opened (premiered before a regular audience), theatre directors are generally considered to have fulfilled their function. From that point forward the stage manager is left in charge of all essential concerns. Stupava, Slovakia Stupava ( German : Stampfen ; Hungarian : Stomfa ) is a town in western Slovakia . It is situated in the Malacky District , Bratislava Region . The name

371-463: Is also sometimes used to mean a stage director, most commonly in ballet . A more common term for theatre director in French is metteur en scène . Post World War II , the actor-manager slowly started to disappear, and directing become a fully fledged artistic activity within the theatre profession. The director originating artistic vision and concept, and realizing the staging of a production, became

424-735: Is an art form that has grown with the development of theatre theory and theatre practice. With the emergence of new trends in theatre, so too have directors adopted new methodologies and engaged in new practices. Interpretation of the drama, by the late twentieth century, had become central to the director's work. Relativism and psychoanalytic theory influenced the work of innovative directors such as Peter Brook , Ingmar Bergman , Peter Stein , and Giorgio Strehler . Kimberly Senior, director of Disgraced on Broadway, explains her role as director by saying “I get to take things that were previously in one dimension and put them into three dimensions using my imagination and intellect and people skills.” Once

477-422: Is arguably the most important German-language acting school, was installed implementing his ideas. Reinhardt took a greater interest in film than most of his contemporaries in the theater world. He made films as a director and from time to time also as a producer. His first staging was the film Sumurûn in 1910. After that, Reinhardt founded his own film company. He sold the film rights for the film adaptation of

530-554: Is derived from Proto-Slavic stǫpa ( Slovak : stupa ) - a wooden bowl carved from a tree trunk, but also the name of various crushing and pressing tools. The town is located in the Záhorie lowland, under the Little Carpathians , around 15 km (9 mi) north of Bratislava at an altitude of 182 metres. It has 15, 095 inhabitants as of 2021 and has a land area of 67.17 km (26 sq mi). Apart from

583-427: Is generally the principle visionary, making decisions on the artistic conception and interpretation of the play and its staging. Different directors occupy different places of authority and responsibility, depending on the structure and philosophy of individual theatre companies. Directors use a wide variety of techniques, philosophies, and levels of collaboration. In ancient Greece , the birthplace of European drama,

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636-564: Is interred at Westchester Hills Cemetery in Hastings-on-Hudson , Westchester County , New York. He was 70 years old. His papers and literary estate are housed at Binghamton University (SUNY) , in the Max Reinhardt Archives and Library. His sons by first wife Else Heims (m. 1910–1935), Wolfgang and Gottfried Reinhardt , were well-regarded film producers. One of his grandsons (by adoption), Stephen Reinhardt ,

689-530: The Friedrichstadt-Palast in Berlin inaugurated a memorial at Friedrichstraße 107 dedicated to the theatre's founders, Max Reinhardt, Hans Poelzig and Erik Charell . Theatre director If the production is a new piece of writing or a (new) translation of a play, the director may also work with the playwright or a translator. In contemporary theatre, after the playwright , the director

742-655: The Großes Schauspielhaus (after World War II renamed into Friedrichstadtpalast ) in 1919, following its expressionist conversion by Hans Poelzig . By 1930, he ran eleven stages in Berlin and, in addition, managed the Theater in der Josefstadt in Vienna from 1924 to 1933. In 1920, Reinhardt established the Salzburg Festival with Richard Strauss and Hugo von Hofmannsthal , always directing

795-823: The Schall und Rauch (Sound and Smoke) Kabarett stage in Berlin. Re-opened as Kleines Theater (Little Theatre) it was the first of numerous stages where Reinhardt worked as a director until the beginning of Nazi rule in 1933. From 1903 to 1905, he managed the Neues Theater (present-day Theater am Schiffbauerdamm ) and in 1906 acquired the Deutsches Theater in Berlin. In 1911, he premiered with Karl Vollmöller 's The Miracle in Olympia , London, gaining an international reputation. In 1910, Siegfried Jacobsohn wrote his book entitled Max Reinhardt . In 1914, he

848-673: The United States through Warner Brothers , the Expressionist film adaptation of William Shakespeare 's A Midsummer Night's Dream , starring Mickey Rooney , Olivia De Havilland , and James Cagney . The film was banned by the Ministry of Propaganda in an infamous example of censorship in Nazi Germany . This was due not only to Joseph Goebbels ' belief that Expressionism was degenerate art , but even more so due to

901-666: The Yale School of Drama produced a number of pioneering directors with D.F.A. (Doctor of Fine Arts) and M.F.A. degrees in Drama (rather than English) who contributed to the expansion of professional resident theaters in the 1960s and 1970s. In the early days such programmes typically led to the staging of one major thesis production in the third (final) year. At the University of California, Irvine , Keith Fowler (a Yale D.F.A. and ex-producer of two LORT companies) led for many years

954-546: The Jewish ancestry of director Max Reinhardt, Classical music composer Felix Mendelsohn , and soundtrack arranger Erich Wolfgang Korngold ; whose work was already banned by Goebbels as allegedly degenerate music . Reinhardt also founded the highly influential drama schools Hochschule für Schauspielkunst "Ernst Busch" in Berlin, Max Reinhardt Seminar , the Max Reinhardt Workshop ( Sunset Boulevard ), and

1007-509: The Max Reinhardt Junior Workshop. Even though Reinhardt did not live long enough to witness the end of Nazism in 1945, his formerly expropriated estate at Schloss Leopoldskron near Salzburg was restored to his widow and his legacy continues to be celebrated and honoured in the modern Germanosphere for his many radically innovative contributions to the performing arts . Reinhardt was born Maximilian Goldmann in

1060-454: The Poet and Friend converse in front of a closed curtain, behind which voices can be heard. It appears that we, the audience, are backstage and the voices are those of the imagined audience out front. It is a simple, but disorienting trick of stagecraft, whose imaginative spatial reversal is self-consciously theatrical. So the audience is alerted to the fact that they are about to see a play and not

1113-616: The Stage: From Naturalism to Growtowski , and Will's The Director in a Changing Theatre (1976). Because of the relatively late emergence of theatre directing as a performing arts profession when compared with for instance acting or musicianship, a rise of professional vocational training programmes in directing can be seen mostly in the second half of the 20th century. Most European countries nowadays know some form of professional directing training, usually at drama schools or conservatoires , or at universities. In Britain,

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1166-612: The Theatre in Hollywood ). Reinhardt won the school, Ben Bard Drama (a playhouse on Wilshire Boulevard), from Ben Bard in a poker game. Reinhardt opened the Reinhardt School of the Theatre in Hollywood, on Sunset Boulevard . Several notable stars of the day received classical theater training, among them actress Nanette Fabray . Many alumni of these schools made their careers in film. Edward G. Kuster , for two years,

1219-525: The US, A Midsummer Night's Dream . He founded the drama schools Hochschule für Schauspielkunst "Ernst Busch" in Berlin, Max Reinhardt Seminar , the Max Reinhardt Workshop ( Sunset Boulevard ), and the Max Reinhardt Junior Workshop. Max Reinhardt Seminar trained Kurt Kasznar . Max Reinhardt's Workshop of Stage, Screen, and Radio ( Sunset Boulevard ) ( Reinhardt School of the Theatre ) trained Ann Savage . Joan Barry , and Nanette Fabray ( Reinhardt School of

1272-704: The annual production of Hoffmansthal's acclaimed adaptation of the Medieval Dutch morality play Everyman , in which the Christian God sends Death to summon an archetype of the Human Race to Judgment Day. In the United States, he successfully directed The Miracle in 1924, and a popular stage version of Shakespeare 's A Midsummer Night's Dream in 1927. From the 1910s to the early 1930s, one of Reinhardt's most frequent collaborators

1325-513: The core part of the city, Mást ( German : Maaßt , Hungarian : Mászt ), located just south of the core part of the city, is another part of Stupava. It has been initially a separate village with ethnic Croatian majority, which was formally annexed by Stupava in 1953. However, traces of habitation go back to the Bronze Age, and the first known inhabitants were the Celts . The Romans built

1378-430: The course of theatrical history with its revolutionary staging techniques." According to Michael Paterson, "The genius of the 20-year old Sorge already showed the possibilities of abstract staging, and Reinhardt in 1917, simply by following Sorge's stage directions, was to become the first director to present a play in wholly Expressionist style." According to Michael Paterson, "The play opens with an ingenious inversion:

1431-563: The director was called didaskalos , the Greek word for "teacher," indicates that the work of these early directors combined instructing their performers with staging their work. In medieval times, the complexity of vernacular religious drama, with its large scale mystery plays that often included crowd scenes, processions and elaborate effects, gave the role of director (or stage manager or pageant master ) considerable importance. A miniature by Jean Fouquet from 1460 (pictured) bears one of

1484-504: The earliest depictions of a director at work. Holding a prompt book, the central figure directs, with the aid of a long stick, the proceedings of the staging of a dramatization of the Martyrdom of Saint Apollonia . According to Fouquet, the director's tasks included overseeing the erecting of a stage and scenery (there were no permanent, purpose-built theatre structures at this time, and performances of vernacular drama mostly took place in

1537-737: The film because of the Jewish ancestry of both Reinhardt and Felix Mendelssohn, whose music (arranged by Erich Wolfgang Korngold ) was used throughout the film. After the Anschluss of Austria to Nazi-governed Germany in 1938, he emigrated first to Britain, then to the United States. In 1940, he became a naturalized citizen of the United States. At that time, he was married to his second wife, actress Helene Thimig , daughter of actor Hugo Thimig . By employing powerful staging techniques, and integrating stage design , language , music and choreography , Reinhardt introduced new dimensions into German theatre. The Max Reinhardt Seminar in Vienna, which

1590-551: The incidental music for Hofmannsthal's Jedermann . Reinhardt followed that success by directing a film version of A Midsummer Night's Dream in 1935 using a mostly different cast, that included James Cagney , Mickey Rooney , Joe E. Brown and Olivia de Havilland , amongst others. Rooney and de Havilland had also appeared in Reinhardt's 1934 stage production, which was staged at the Hollywood Bowl . The Nazis banned

1643-696: The job"; to this purpose, theatres often employ trainee assistant directors or have in-house education schemes to train young theatre directors. Examples are the Royal National Theatre in London , which frequently organizes short directing courses, or the Orange Tree Theatre and the Donmar Warehouse on London's West End , which both employ resident assistant directors on a one-year basis for training purposes. Directing

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1696-453: The most picturesque actor-directors of modern times", and write that his eventual arrival in the United States as a refugee from the imminent Nazi takeover of Austria followed a long and distinguished career, "inspired by the example of social participation in the ancient Greek and Medieval theatres ", of seeking, "to bridge the separation between actors and audiences". In 1935, Reinhardt directed his first and only motion picture in

1749-432: The norm rather than the exception. Great forces in the emancipation of theatre directing as a profession were notable 20th-century theatre directors like Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko , Vsevolod Meyerhold , Yevgeny Vakhtangov , Michael Chekhov , Yuri Lyubimov (Russia), Orson Welles , Peter Brook , Peter Hall (Britain), Bertolt Brecht (Germany), Giorgio Strehler , and Franco Zeffirelli (Italy). A cautionary note

1802-412: The open air), casting and directing the actors (which included fining them for those that infringed rules), and addressing the audience at the beginning of each performance and after each intermission. From Renaissance times up until the 19th century, the role of director was often carried by the actor-manager . This would usually be a senior actor in a troupe who took the responsibility for choosing

1855-470: The play Das Mirakel ( The Miracle ) to Joseph Menchen , whose full-colour 1912 film of The Miracle gained world-wide success. Controversies around the staging of Das Mirakel , which was shown in the Vienna Rotunde in 1912, led to Reinhardt's retreat from the project. The author of the play, Reinhardt's friend and confidant Karl Gustav Vollmoeller , had French director Michel Carré finish

1908-605: The re-opened Salzburg City Theatre . One year later, Reinhardt relocated to Germany , joining the Deutsches Theater ensemble under director Otto Brahm in Berlin. Reinhardt was one of the contributors of the Swedish avant-garde theatre magazine Thalia between 1910 and 1913. In 1918 Reinhardt purchased Schloss Leopoldskron castle in Salzburg. In October 1922 Reinhardt was in the audience when The Dybbuk

1961-543: The repertoire of work, staging it and managing the company. This was the case for instance with Commedia dell'Arte companies and English actor-managers like Colley Cibber and David Garrick . The modern theatre director can be said to have originated in the staging of elaborate spectacles of the Meininger Company under George II, Duke of Saxe-Meiningen . The management of large numbers of extras and complex stagecraft matters necessitated an individual to take on

2014-555: The rights from Sorge in 1913, proved enormously popular and productions immediately began to be staged in other German cities, such as Cologne . After the 1918 Armistice, newspapers in the German language in the United States also published articles highly praising Reinhardt's production of the play, which singlehandedly gave birth to Expressionism in the theatre. After the November Revolution of 1918 , Reinhardt re-opened

2067-695: The role of overall coordinator. This gave rise to the role of the director in modern theatre, and Germany would provide a platform for a generation of emerging visionary theatre directors, such as Erwin Piscator and Max Reinhardt . Simultaneously, Constantin Stanislavski , principally an actor-manager, would set up the Moscow Art Theatre in Russia and similarly emancipate the role of the director as artistic visionary. The French regisseur

2120-640: The sea gods, Ernst Matray  [ de ] a bachelor and a faun, Leopoldine Konstantin the Circe . The shooting for Eine venezianische Nacht by Karl Gustav Vollmoeller took place in Venice. Maria Carmi played the bride, Alfred Abel the young stranger, and Ernst Matray Anselmus and Pipistrello. The shooting was disturbed by a fanatic who incited the attendant Venetians against the German-speaking staff. In 1935, Reinhardt directed his first film in

2173-555: The shooting. Reinhardt made two films, Die Insel der Seligen ( Isle of the Blessed ) and Eine venezianische Nacht ( Venetian Nights ), under a four-picture contract for the German film producer Paul Davidson . Released in 1913 and 1914, respectively, both films received negative reviews from the press and public. The other two films called for in the contract were never made. Both films demanded much of cameraman Karl Freund because of Reinhardt's special shooting needs, such as filming

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2226-514: The spa town of Baden bei Wien , the son of Rachel Lea Rosi "Rosa" Goldmann and her husband Wilhelm Goldmann, a merchant from Stupava, Slovakia . Having finished school, he began an apprenticeship at a bank, but already took acting lessons. In 1890, he gave his debut on a private stage in Vienna with the stage name Max Reinhardt (possibly after the protagonist Reinhard Werner in Theodor Storm 's novella Immensee ). In 1893 he performed at

2279-690: The theatre and ultimately in motion pictures as well. In 1920, Reinhardt established the Salzburg Festival by directing an open air production of Hugo von Hofmannsthal 's acclaimed adaptation of the Everyman Medieval mystery play in the square before the Cathedral with the Alps as a background. This remains an annual custom at the Salzburg Festival to this day. Toby Cole and Helen Krich Chinoy have dubbed Reinhardt, "one of

2332-536: The tradition that theatre directors emerge from degree courses (usually in English literature) at the Oxbridge universities has meant that for a long time, professional vocational training did not take place at drama schools or performing arts colleges, although an increase in training programmes for theatre directors can be witnessed since the 1970s and 1980s. In American universities, the seminal directing program at

2385-420: The writer bore principal responsibility for the staging of his plays. Actors were generally semi-professionals, and the director oversaw the mounting of plays from the writing process all the way through to their performance, often acting in them too, as Aeschylus for example did. The author-director would also train the chorus , sometimes compose the music, and supervise every aspect of production. The fact that

2438-545: Was a labor lawyer who served notably on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit from his appointment by Jimmy Carter in 1980 until his death in 2018. Another grandson, Michael Reinhardt , is a successful fashion photographer. In 2015 his great-granddaughter Jelena Ulrike Reinhardt was appointed as researcher at the University of Perugia in German literature . On 18 November 2015,

2491-473: Was introduced by the famed director Sir Tyrone Guthrie who said "the only way to learn how to direct a play, is ... to get a group of actors simple enough to allow you to let you direct them, and direct." A number of seminal works on directing and directors include Toby Cole and Helen Krich's 1972 Directors on Directing: A Sourcebook of the Modern Theatre , Edward Braun's 1982 book The Director and

2544-498: Was known as Geller Theatre Workshop , Hollywood School of Acting , and Theatre of Arts Hollywood Acting School . In 2000, the school, Theatre of Arts , was associated with Campus Hollywood, which included, Musicians Institute , and Los Angeles College of Music . In 2009, James Warwick was appointed President. Max Reinhardt Junior Workshop trained Mala Powers . Reinhardt died of a stroke in New York City in 1943 and

2597-632: Was persuaded to sign the Manifesto of the Ninety-Three , defending the German invasion of Belgium . He was signatory 66; he later expressed regret at signing. From 1915 to 1918, Reinhardt also worked as director of the Volksbühne theatre. On 23 December 1917, Reinhardt presided over the world premiere of Reinhard Sorge 's Kleist Prize -winning stage play Der Bettler , which had long been, "a succès de scandale , an innovation, changing

2650-456: Was seized following Germany's Anschluss annexation of Austria in 1938. After the war, the castle was restored to Reinhardt's heirs, and subsequently the home and grounds became famous as the filming site for the early scenes of the Von Trapp family gardens in the movie The Sound of Music . In 1901, Reinhardt together with Friedrich Kayßler and several other theatre colleagues founded

2703-728: Was staged by the Vilna Troupe at the Roland Theater in Vienna . Reinhardt rushed backstage and congratulated the actors. At the time he was already recognized in Austria as distinguished theater director. A couple of months before his endorsement for The Dybbuk , Reinhardt had again successfully staged Jedermann (Everyman) for the Salzburg Festival . Reinhardt fled due to the Nazis' increasing anti-Semitic aggressions. The castle

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2756-630: Was the Swedish-born American composer and conductor Einar Nilson  [ sv ] , whom he employed as the music department head of his theaters; during international trips, Nilson would also serve as an advance man for Reinhardt, traveling ahead to the next performance location to audition singers and actors. Reinhardt, moreover, often would utilize existing music by famous composers (for example, Mozart and Mendelssohn ) for his productions, which Nilson would arrange to meet Reinhardt's needs. Nilson also composed original music, such as

2809-623: Was the personal assistant to Reinhardt, taught classes and directed plays. In 1938, Walden Philip Boyle, later, a founding faculty of the Department of Theater Arts at UCLA, worked with the Max Reinhardt Theatre Academy in Hollywood . Students include Alan Ladd , Jack Carson , Robert Ryan , Gower Champion , Shirley Temple , Angie Dickinson , Frank Bonner , Anthony James , Greg Mullavey , Charlene Tilton , and Cliff Robertson In 1943, Reinhardt departed. It later

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