Theater in Estonia

Theater in Estonia dates back to 1784 when August von Kotzebue founded an amatheur theater company in Tallinn. Most of the plays at the time were comedies for the amusement for local Baltic German nobility. In 1809 a professional theater company was established having its own building in Tallinn. The repertoire was mostly in German but also plays in Estonian and Russian were performed. [ [http://books.google.com/books?id=IpR0-OrrwssC&dq Culture And Customs of the Baltic States By Kevin O'Connor] ]

After centuries of serfdom that was abolished in Estonia in 1816, the position the native Estonian population had fallen to since the Livonian Crusade, the first native Estonian musical society Vanemuine was established in 1865. Lydia Koidula's "the Cousin from Saaremaa" in 1870 staged by the Vanemuine society marks the birth of Estonian theater.

The Vanemuine society was headed by August Wiera from 1878 to 1903. In 1906 a new building was erected for the society and it theater company became directed by Karl Menning. Plays by Western writers such as Henrik Ibsen, Gerhart Hauptmann, Russian Maksim Gorky and Estonian August Kitzberg, Oskar Luts and Eduard Vilde were staged.

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