America: The Shattered Dream

The Salzburg State Theatre, in cooperation with Salzburger Nachrichten, is hosting a special kind of panel discussion: on April 20, the SN Hall will become both a discussion space and a stage. The focus will be on the current situation in the United States under President Donald Trump. Artistic interventions from Franz Kafka’s “Amerika”, currently being performed at the Salzburg State Theatre in a production by Georg Schmiedleitner, will provide a theatrical framework for the discussion.

Gudrun Doringer, Head of Foreign Affairs, will moderate the discussion and welcome journalist and lecturer Dr. Christian Fahrenbach to the panel. As the first German fellow in the “Entrepreneurial Journalism” program at the City University of New York and a founding member of Krautreporter, he now regularly works as a U.S. correspondent for Salzburger Nachrichten.

Also participating is Univ.-Prof. Dr. Reinhard Heinisch, Professor of Austrian Politics and former head of the Department of Political Science. He studied at the University of Pittsburgh and has worked as a political consultant for institutions such as the U.S. Department of State and the Austrian Ministry of Defense. He is also a recipient of the Austrian National Prize for Science awarded by the Lupac Foundation.

The artistic perspective is contributed by director and dramaturge Sarah Henker. She studied Applied Theatre Studies at Justus Liebig University Giessen. She made her directing debut in 2019 with “We Should All Be Feminists”, followed by further works at the Salzburg State Theatre. Her production of “Ich rufe meine Brüder” won the Stella Award in 2025 for outstanding production for young audiences. The integration of current political discourse and debate is a defining element of her theatrical work.

April 20, 2026 | 7:30 PM
SN Hall, Karolingerstr. 40, 5021 Salzburg
Admission: €5 (tickets HERE)

Accessible via bus line 10, stop “Pressezentrum”.