Amateur and professional theatre in Ottoman Thessaloniki

The development of theatre in Turkish-ruled Thessaloniki illustrates a gradual Europeanisation of residents’ entertainment but also intensifying national rivalries expressed in the separate theatrical life of each of the communities that coexisted in Thessaloniki. The history of theatre, a quintessentially urban pursuit, attests the city’s increasing wealth, the gradual secularisation of its morals, and the entry of Thessaloniki into the broader national and international cultural events of the age. Indeed, from 1850 until 1912, more than 150 performances of Greek and foreign plays took place, by amateur and professional companies, and the most important Greek professional theatre companies and many foreign ones passed through the city.