ABSTRACT
By the early 1990s the Finnish National Theatre had solidified its artistic standing in Finland by keeping pace with both social change and the latest dramatic movements. The Theatre had expanded its performance territory with the addition of new stages and smaller performance spaces. Thanks to their contemporary subject matter and provocative artistry, the smaller stage productions added significant value to the Theatre’s wider public reputation. The National Theatre activated the ties with the Theatre Academy during the early 1990s. At the National Theatre, actors from the National Theatre and the Theatre Academy performed side-by-side. The main focus of these collaborative dramatic activities were Willensauna and Omapohja. These productions were a tangible marker of how the artistic community at the Finnish National Theatre had become steadily younger throughout the 1980s. Now, the Finnish National Theatre was a theatre with a significantly younger demographic, a theatre where domestic drama had achieved a strong and future-looking position, and a theatre with an established and fruitful working relationship with the radically reformed Theatre Academy.
