Singin’ in the Rain and Monte Cristo among five new Tampereen Teatteri premieres

Tampereen Teatteri has unveiled a busy autumn programme in Tampere, with five new premieres and a wide range of guest performances, and opening nights running from 2 September to 5 November. The announcement followed the theatre's late‑August preview event, where the company presented excerpts from Singin’ in the Rain and tours of the renovated Café Elli.

The season opens on 2 September at the Frenckell stage with Florian Zeller’s comedy Perfect Saturday, directed by Marika Vapaavuori and featuring Aimo Räsänen in the lead. On 9 September the Main Stage presents a large-scale Singin’ in the Rain musical, directed by Hilkka-Liisa Iivanainen. The production uses 21 actors and an 11-piece orchestra. "This autumn the rain will, at last, come from the stage rather than the ceiling, and after the renovation I say that both with relief and quite literally," theatre director Mikko Kanninen said.

Antti Mikkola’s new adaptation of Alexandre Dumas’s The Count of Monte Cristo opens on 21 October on the Main Stage, with Lasse Viitamäki taking his first major leading role amid demanding prison and fight sequences. Black Ice, a smaller-scale but intense premiere, receives its theatre premiere on 14 October at the Frenckell stage. It is Petri Kotwica’s own adaptation of his award-winning 2007 film and is staged by Kotwica himself, with a script by Tuomas Timonen.

The renovated lobby space, now the Lounge Stage, will host Arttu Ratinen’s song evening Ikuinen uni on 5 November, a close-up programme pairing Kaj Chydenius’s music with Federico García Lorca’s poems and Ratinen’s personal stories, accompanied by guitar and piano. "I realised now is the right time to sing these songs and tell these stories that matter to me," Ratinen said.

Alongside the premieres, the season includes numerous guest performances and special events: Martti Suosalo appears with Starman and a run of Kiviä taskussa, Lari Halme brings a monologue in October, Ella Mettänen presents Väylä, and the Red Nose Company visits in December. The programme also features role-play evenings, backstage talks on selected productions and a Live-Kerma discussion event in the Lounge Stage.