The Theatre Times: The Icelandic theatre season is about to come out of hibernation, where theatres close for the summer, and gradually reopen in September. Traditionally, the professional theatre season runs from September to June, with a few exceptions, and is mostly centered in Reykjavík, the capital, but also represented in Akureyri in the north. And like Iceland, with a population of 330,000, the performing arts scene is small, very small. However, the audience attendance numbers are staggering and possibly unique globally. In the 2013 – 2014 theatre season Statistics Iceland calculated that more than 270,000 people attended a professional theatre performance, and that number sky-rockets if amateur productions are included.
1 comment:
It is amazing to see that that the Icelandic theatre scene is thriving. This article has definitely made me consider Iceland as a place I would travel to see theatre or even work one day. I think it would extremely interesting to see how American theatre differs from a technical aspect, not just the physical elements but the pedagogy of managing a show or lighting a show. Iceland strikes me a place I would possibly want to work because of the community dedication. There clearly is funding behind this theatre if over 80% of the country is seeing professional/semiprofessional theatre. It is interesting how nationalistic Icelandic theatre seems from the article because I feel in modern American theatre there is a lot of questioning of American values.
Post a Comment