From Krabat to Medicus: summer theater in the open air

From Krabat and Räuber Hotzenplotz to Monty Python and Oscar Wilde: Saxony's open-air theatres attract audiences with a wide-ranging program of summer theater in the open air. In many places, the plays are performed in special settings. For example, the story of "Alice in Wonderland" is performed as a musical in the courtyard of Ortenburg Castle in Bautzen. Theater Plauen-Zwickau is also focusing on musicals: it has adapted the bestseller "The Medicus" for the stage in both cities.

Framed in the unique landscape of Saxon Switzerland, the Rathen Nature Stage will be staging "Little Red Riding Hood" and material by Karl May, as well as the romantic opera "Der Freischütz" and a stage version of the novel "Die Spur der Hebamme" by Sabine Ebert.

The Greifenstein Festival in the Ore Mountains also offers an impressive natural backdrop. The Eduard-von-Winterstein-Theater has three revivals and three new productions up its sleeve until 1 September: in addition to the family play "Drachen haben nichts zu lachen" and "Monty Python's Spamalot (Die Ritter der Kokosnuss)", the theater is bringing Otfried Preußler's "The Little Witch" and the Olsen Gang to the stage.

"Krabat" saga in Schwarzkollm sold out

Those who want to experience the continuation of the Krabat story in Schwarzkollm in Upper Lusatia and do not yet have tickets will be left empty-handed. The 16 performances from June 26 are sold out. This year's play begins after Krabat has freed Schwarzkollm from the Black Miller and peace has returned. But in the midst of the happy springtime hustle and bustle, the miller returns strangely disembodied, according to the announcement.

Every summer, Theater Chemnitz moves into the open-air stage in Küchwaldpark. In the Capital of Culture year, the theater makers are focusing on international material: Mark Twain's story about friends Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn on the one hand, and Oscar Wilde's "The Picture of Dorian Gray" on the other.

"In times of absolute self-optimization, the delusional cultivation of youth and bodies and the greed for perfect real and media self-portrayal, Oscar Wilde's novel, published in 1891, seems almost visionary," says the theater. In world literature, it stands as a synonym for the "narcissistic megalomania of man".