Soosteri School / final performances

The legacy of Ülo Soosteri

with the poetry of Ilmar Laaban

in collaboration with Tartu New Theatre and the 16th class of actors and directors of the Viljandi Culture Academy of the University of Tartu

How do you make a production about an artist whose aim was not to depict what is seen, but to widen the viewer’s perception? For whom a picture was not a wall decoration but an invitation to an expedition of discovery? For whom what was depicted had to be simultaneously one thing and another, and ideally a third and a fourth? And who, beside him, was also the last Pallas man, the repressed and, by the standards of the last century, the last genius? How can this be translated into the language of theatre, and is it possible at all?

The production uses drawings by Ülo Soosteri, documentary material from the archive of the Tartu Art Museum, and the poetry of Ilmar Laaban, a contemporary of Soosteri whose fate was entirely different. The production was created in cooperation with Tartu New Theatre (the production team), the University of Tartu Viljandi Culture Academy (acting and directing students) and the Tartu Art Museum (the collection of Ülo Soosteri’s drawings).

Cast

The acting and directing students of the 16th class of the Performing Arts programme at the Viljandi Culture Academy of the University of Tartu

HELERIIN LASS, HELERY PIKK, JETE LIISA KIIK, MARGOT LEHTSALU, POLINA KRYUCHKOVA, SAARA KALJUJÄRV, GREGORI JOHANNES NÕMM, JENS-PATRIK RAND, JENSS LOOTUS, KASPER SEBASTIAN SILLA, LEONHARD SASS TAALMAA, VALERI BAŽENOV

Author and director: IVAR PÕLLU

Artist: KRISTIINA PÕLLU

Composer: TAUNO AINTS

Light artist: RENE LIIVAMÄGI

Premiere

25 October 2025, small hall of Tartu New Theatre

Partners

Soosteri Foundation

University of Tartu Viljandi Culture Academy

Tartu Art Museum

Supporters

Estonian Ministry of Culture

City of Tartu

Estonian National Culture Foundation