ABSTRACT
The Finnish National Theatre is surveyed in the context of the changing field of theatre. The pressure to change and reform was felt across the board at Finnish theatres: from the way they organised themselves, to their funding, their physical spaces, and the way they trained and managed their professionals. These demands co-existed with the demands placed on their theatrical and artistic output and their content. Despite its private ownership, the National Theatre was very much tied to the wider Finnish cultural scene and public opinion of theatres and their position in society. The Theatre had to both differentiate itself and fulfil public expectations. The Finnish National Theatre was under mounting political pressure in the 1970s when prevailing values of cultural democracy and the Theatre’s private ownership were particularly unaligned. The National Theatre did manage to strengthen its position, and by the beginning of the 1990s, it was largely seen as a powerful cultural influence. At the same time, a new generation had sprung up that was pushing the dramatic arts to develop even further, while the surrounding world prepared itself for the disintegration of boundaries and borders that had been long upheld by the Cold War.
