Turku City Theatre
The region's largest repertory theatre, in a modernist riverside building with three stages.
Turku City Theatre traces its company back to 1946, when the city took over a theatre whose roots reached into the nineteenth century. Its present home on the east bank of the Aura was completed in 1962 to a competition design by Risto-Veikko Luukkonen and Helmer Stenros, a restrained modernist block of pale surfaces and long glazed foyers facing the river. The building was thoroughly renovated and extended in the 2010s, adding rehearsal and workshop space and reopening in 2017.
The theatre is the largest in south-western Finland and works on three stages: the Main Stage, the Little Stage and the small studio known as the Nook. It stages between five and ten premieres a year alongside guest performances, giving roughly four hundred performances in total, and its repertoire mixes classic drama, new Finnish writing, musicals and work for children. Performances are mainly in Finnish, with occasional productions and stand-up evenings in English.
Highlights
- Modernist 1962 riverside building by Luukkonen and Stenros
- Three stages: the Main Stage, the Little Stage and the Nook
- Around 400 performances and up to ten premieres each season
- Renovated and extended, reopening in 2017
