Archive

ARCHIVE

This theatre had the honorable mission of starting a professional drama theatre. It has been through a series of name changes: it began life as the Drama Playhouse with the premiere of Sudermann’s “Midsummer Night’s Dream” on 19 December 1920, then took wings as the State Theatre (1925); during the difficult years of the German occupation, it was known as the Bolshoi Theatre, and was even at one point called the Kaunas State Musical Theatre (1950); it settled down to the name of the State Academic Theatre of Drama, before it was given the twelfth name and its current status of National Theatre in 2012. The theatre was housed here in 1959. After the first drama performance at the City Theatre, now the Kaunas State Musical Theatre, and after several decades of sharing the stage with its opera and ballet brethren, the theatre was able to move into the building of the inter-war cinema “Metropolitan” (1928). Even with the most modern technology, it has not lost the spirit of the interwar period and its unique Art Deco style. It was the birthplace of the national drama of the inter-war period, the birthplace of the art of stage design, and the birthplace of generations of theatre directors and composers. Over the past 100 years and a bit, the theatre’s creative wealth has been nurtured by several hundred actors – personalities who have shaped the history of theatre throughout Lithuania. The theatre, whose origins established the example of political literacy of the then young Lithuanian state, spoke tirelessly about freedom, and when it was lost, there was a silent resistance. Seeing the dawn of a state in the making, he felt the 30 years of the new independence. You can still experience the story of the Centenary today by taking a look around the archive gallery.