Uppsala City Theatre is Sweden’s third largest city theatre. Our vision is to create revolutionary performing arts of the highest quality that engage and challenge in the present and into the future. We also have a promise: to affect beyond the performance.
Uppsala City Theatre is often described as a visitor magnet, a vibrant heart in the middle of the city. Our performing arts should challenge, be bold, and relevant. We want to make everyone’s voices heard and are unafraid to take paths that stimulate new thoughts and insights. Uppsala City Theatre aims to be a voice in public discourse, rooted in what is important in Uppsala today. Through international collaborations, we also bring the theatre out into the world and the world into the theatre.
A broad program with classics and new drama reflecting our times is produced here. We want our repertoire to spark desire, passion, and curiosity. As an institutional theatre, we preserve traditions and cultural heritage while also renewing the performing arts. Large-scale stage productions, dramatic works, musical theatre, monologues, and chamber plays, along with guest performances and public discussions, reach around 80,000 visitors each year.
About 50 actors, including a core ensemble of 12 members, work at the theatre, along with staff in administration, technical departments, makeup, costumes, set design, and production. A steady flow of freelancers and new artists contributes to a constant influx of new ideas. The theatre has four different stages and spacious foyers. The Main Stage seats about 530 audience members, the Small Stage about 160, the Basement Stage about 100, and our smallest stage, Intiman, seats about 50 people.
Uppsala City Theatre invests heavily in children and young people, with programs for school students, families, and university students. We collaborate with many schools in the region. The theatre also has its very own youth ensemble, which is reformed with new young members every autumn. Our ambition is to include every child in the region.
Uppsala City Theatre received the Guldstolen award in 2023, the Swedish Architects’ prize for best interior design, following an extensive renovation, the first since the 1980s. The Guldstolen is the interior architects’ own award. The winners must demonstrate high artistic and innovative value, as well as be functional and well-designed.
Former CEO/Theatre Director Petra Brylander shares:
”The whole idea behind the foyer project was to allow the public spaces to harmonize with what we present on stage, creating a generous and exciting space that both challenges and invites. The foyer has a unique expression that can only be experienced at Uppsala City Theatre, much like our productions. Architect Tove Sjöberg has delved into the building’s origins, using the fresco as inspiration, and has uncovered many details that had been hidden for decades. Together with lighting designer Lina Färje, she has created rooms and environments that will endure and thrive for a long time.”
Architect Tove Sjöberg from Studio Feuer describes the work:
”With many creative skills in-house, the theatre has largely managed the project itself and even built some parts. The work process has given us the privilege to collaborate closely, and at Studio Feuer, we’ve truly gotten to know the building and its operations. The theatre’s activities provided unique conditions for the renovation project. Some parts were rebuilt during the summer breaks between performances. In 2020, we renovated the upper foyer. Much of the work involved ‘cleaning up’ the installations, materials, and details, and highlighting the fantastic elements that were already there (Marble staircase! Columns! Wall painting!). The color scheme is based on both existing and new shades to create a vibrant color palette, a nod to the 1950s, but not a strict reconstruction of any particular era.”
OUR HISTORY
Uppsala City Theatre was inaugurated in 1951. The building is constructed as a combination of a People’s House and a theatre, designed in a Neoclassical style by Gunnar Leche. The choice of style was criticized for looking back to the 1920s rather than embracing the modern ideals of Functionalism. Today, the building’s blend of styles is appreciated, and Leche is regarded as a prominent architect well beyond Uppsala.
When the theatre began its operations, there was no resident ensemble; instead, the theatre relied entirely on guest performances during its first season of 1950/1951. The first production at the theatre, Peter Ustinov’s The Four Loves of a Warrior, was directed by theatre manager Gösta Folke and premiered on the Main Stage on September 28, 1951.
Uppsala City Theatre’s first theatre manager, Gösta Folke, was a highly esteemed director who set a high standard for the theatre. To the Uppsala audience, he described the theatre as a ”pulpit of joy,” a theatre that had something important to say and did so in an entertaining manner.*
Inside the foyer, there is a listed stucco lustro (wall painting) by artist Sven X-et Erixson, depicting his own stage designs and costumes for famous plays, including William Shakespeare’s Richard III, Federico Garcia Lorca’s Blood Wedding, and August Strindberg’s Miss Julie.
The wall painting remains both brilliantly smooth and durable to this day, as the surface has been polished with hot irons. The fresco was completed in 1952.
*From Tid med teater by Christer Åberg, 2001
CEO/Theatre Directors over the years
Gösta Folke, 1951–1957
Carl-Axel Heiknert, 1957–1961
Frank Sundström 1961–1964
Palle Granditsky 1964–1974
Lars Engström 1974–1979
Staffan Olzon 1979–1981
Pierre Fränckel 1981–1985
Åke Lundqvist 1985–1991
Finn Poulsen 1991–1997
Stefan Böhm 1997–2007
Linus Tunström 2007–2016
Petra Brylander 2016–2024
Rikard Lekander 2024–