ABSTRACT
The period 1996-1999 has seen many changes in the theatre landscape in Iceland. Previously a council of members from all sectors of the Icelandic theatre community, it has been reduced to a committee of three, two of them appointed by the cultural minister, and its sole purpose is to dish out grants to professional theatre groups. It has also shown interesting artistic ambitions in its recent productions of modern American and Russian drama. This chapter argues that the grass roots have sprung up on the smaller stages of the National theatre and the City theatre, providing inspiration for the independent practitioners. Included in the figure are short one-act plays, adaptations, and children's plays, which is as it should be. Worth attention is the tendency of directors some of whom are playwrights in their own right to work with their own material: dramatisations, adaptations, stage versions of diverse material and devised shows of various kinds.
