Helsinki City Theatre’s early autumn programme has been published / Helsingfors Stadsteaters höstrepertoar har släppts

The autumn season on the big stage will be opened by the new comedy Let’s Play Business, which premieres on 30 August. Written and directed by Juha Jokela, one of Finland’s most successful playwrights, who is visiting HKT for the first time, this exhilarating comedy about working life and its performance deals with the challenges of modern working life with a hilarious touch.

The events take place in a Finnish project consulting company called HX, whose authoritarian director Raimo Hemming has recently retired. The company’s employees are trying to adapt to the time after the charismatic but controversial figurehead under the leadership of a new leader, Artturi, who aims to bring a new kind of work culture to the company and unite the “hustle gang” with people-oriented leadership. However, it is difficult to attract the former leader’s supporters and opponents to the same team. By some random coincidence, a troupe of actors has been hired to perform the story, whose artistic director does not actually play according to a mutually agreed rulebook. The result is an uncontrollable chaos that runs alongside the company story, where roles change on the fly and backdrops fall, and which is above all the worst nightmare of the theatre’s financial manager.

The cast includes Wanda Dubiel, Sari Haapamäki, Sanna-June Hyde, Santeri Kinnunen, Aksinja Lommi, Kai Lähdesmäki, Martti Manninen, Unto Nuora, Raili Raitala, Ursula Salo and Jan-Christian Söderholm.

The autumn on the Arena stage will start with the new and fresh farce comedy The Cottage, directed by Sari Siikander, which will premiere on 3 September. The comedy written by Sandy Rustin, which premiered on Broadway in 2023, is set in 1920s England, but its twists and turns are full of today.

Sylvia and her secret lover Beau have arrived for their annual villa meeting. This time, Sylvia drops a real news bomb on Beau and tells him that she has left her husband. This is just the beginning, as the duo’s spouses are next frightened to the same villa. A veritable Pandora’s box of secrets is torn open, and both the identities of the characters and the notions of marriage are thrown into a fiercely spinning mill.

The cast includes Ella Lymi, Pihla Penttinen, Heikki Ranta, Emilia Sinisalo, Sauli Suonpää and Mikko Virtanen.

On 28 August, the Queen’s Play will premiere on the Small Stage, which tells the story of Queen Christina, who ruled Sweden from 1632 to 1654. Written by Jussi Moila and directed by Sini Pesonen, this contemporary historical drama breathes strongly today with its themes of power, gender and love.

Young Kristina faces huge expectations. She is a girl who is raised to be a king. A woman who must secure the royal family by marrying and giving birth to an heir. A ruler who must be the figurehead and leader of his war-torn nation. But Kristina wants something completely different. He wants to make dark and uncivilized Sweden a guiding star of science and art, a European kingdom of freedom and civilisation. And Kristina wants her lady-in-waiting Belle. The cross-pressure between the public role and private life gives rise to wild, funny and touching drama.

The role of Queen Kristina is played by actress, musician and activist Elsi Sloan, and Belle is played by Aino Sirje. The other roles are played by Rauno Ahonen, Pekka Huotari, Vappu Nalbantoglu, Alvari Stenbäck, Kaisa Torkkel, Mikko Vihma and Joachim Wigelius.

The second premiere of the autumn on the Small Stage is Aleksi from Finland, which premieres on 9 October, which is a true story about the Finnish professional soldier Aleksi Lysander (1989–2024). The play is dramatised by Ari-Pekka Lahti based on Tuomas Kyrö’s work of the same name (WSOY, 2023) and directed by Tuomas Rinta-Panttila.

The son of a Finnish mother and a Senegalese father who spent his childhood on his grandparents’ farm in Oulu decided to become a soldier and joined the Foreign Legion at the age of 18. He served in Afghanistan and several African countries. He was one of the first volunteers to go to Ukraine in 2022, returned to Finland from time to time, but left for Ukraine again in the fall of 2024, where he passed away in the last days of the year.

The play has been prepared in collaboration with Aleksi Lysander, and he hoped that the performance would be carried out and become as honest as possible a description of the aftermath of war and how war is never the right solution. The delicate and shocking story is presented by actors Roderick Kabanga and Eetu Känkänen.

On 25 September, Studio Pasila will premiere a musical play for the whole family, Who Captured the Sun, based on Mauri Kunnas’s book on the theme of the Kalevala of Dogs. The work has been dramatised and directed by musician, writer and dramaturg Liila Jokelin, who has also composed the music for the play together with multi-instrumentalist Lauri Schreck.

In the sky of Väinölä, the sun shines golden. So golden that the greedy Louhi of the North gets an idea: if he robbed the sun and forged it into gold coins! Louhi and his wolf troops trap the sun in the cave and it gets cold in Väinölä. In the North, on the other hand, it is scorching hot as the chained sun smolders angrily in its cave. But the sun has a power that not even Louhi can do anything about. Even the most greedy learn what is really important in life.

The roles of this funny, wise and insightful play are played by Juha Jokela, Jouko Klemettilä, Sanna Majuri, Jari Pehkonen, Inkeri Raittila, Sanna Saarijärvi, Antti Timonen and Leenamari Unho. The recommended age for the performance is from 5 years of age upwards.

On 11 September, Lilla Teatern will premiere Hyenans dagar, based on the novel by award-winning director and author Saara Turunen and directed by Turunen herself. Hyenans dagar is aimed at everyone who has ever pursued something, encountered difficulties or been pushed into an unknown world.

The book immerses itself in a reproductive story, it sheds light on one woman’s story from fertility treatments to having a child. The proposal is a report-like follow-up report and a description of a single period in which the private and the social intersect and get confused. Under the surface, the work deals with embodiment, control and the culture of coping. The performance does not offer ready-made answers, rather it only shows scenes, moments and situations from which the viewer can make their own interpretations.

The cast includes Kreeta Salminen, Elmer Bäck, Katja Küttner, Pia Runnakko and Alexander Wendelin.

At the premiere of the autumn season of the stage of the contemporary performance at Studio Pasila on 7 August, there will be a nostalgia trip little_star95 – ooksä online?. The work, conceptualised by Sara Koiranen and Ida Hägglund together with a working group, invites you to take a trip to a teenage girl’s room and spend an evening on the internet in the early 2000s. Hilma Kotkaniemi will be seen on stage.

In the autumn season, the repertoire will continue on the big stage with the mega-hit Moulin Rouge! A musical and a classic fairy tale Veljeni Leijonamieli. The stand-up club Club act!one will continue in Studio Pasila and the ever-popular Stones in Your Pocket will continue on the Arena stage, which will be performed for the 1000th time in the autumn. The audience’s beloved Coffee with the Writer events will also continue in the balcony foyer of the main stage, and the children’s theatre performance Molli’s Evening Hepuli will continue in the foyer of the small stage.

Read the new Teatteriin magazine here.

Next premieres at the Helsinki City Theatre

20.3.2025 DREAMER, age. Annamari Keskinen and Ryan Mason
10.4.2025 Beauty and the Monsters, dir. Linda Wallgren
29.4.2025 Stage of the contemporary performance: Agora – Two Mermaids in an Empty Pool, dir. Minna Lund
7.8.2025 Stage of the contemporary performance: little_star95 – ooksä online?, performance concept Sara Koiranen, Ida Hägglund and working group
28.8.2025 The Queen’s Play, dir. Sini Pesonen
30.8.2025 Let’s Play Business, dir. Juha Jokela
3.9.2025 Buzzing and Adjustment, dir. Sari Siikander
11.9.2025 Hyena Days, dir. Saara Turunen
25.9.2025 Who Captured the Sun, dir. Liila Jokelin
9.10.2025 Aleksi from Finland, dir. Tuomas Rinta-Panttila

In the autumn of 2025, the Moulin Rouge! Musical, dir. Anders Albien
My Brother Lionheart, dir. Jakob Höglund
Stones in Your Pocket, dir. Pentti Kotkaniemi
Mollin iltahepuli, dir. Jenny Jumppanen
Club act!oneOver coffee with the authorGuest performances

1.4.2025 Let’s not make a new issue of this, Sinikka Nopola memorial celebration, Arena stage
9.5.2025 Jump to the Fire of Lilacs poetry concert, Arena Stage
from 13.5.2025 Strömsö, Red Nose Company, Lilla Teatern
20. and 21.11.2025 Iikka Kivi – Special Relationship with Nature, Arena Stage
22.11.2025 André Wickström 30 years on stage – and there is no end in sight!, Arena Stage

Helsinki City Theatre’s ticket sales and customer service by phone (09) 3940 22 Mon–Fri 10 am–5 pm. Ticket offices First line 2, Mon–Fri 12 noon–5 pm, Eläintarhantie 5, Sat (on performance days) 11 am–6.30 pm and one hour before the performance and Lippu.fi, Mon–Sat 9 am–9 pm, Sun 10 am–4 pm, tel. 0600 900 900 (2 €/min + local network charge) www.hkt.fi

Photo in the release: Let’s Play Business, in the photo Martti Manninen, Sanna-June Hyde, Wanda Dubiel, Santeri Kinnunen and Ursula Salo. Photo: Otto-Ville Väätäinen.

Further information, media ticket reservations and interview requests:

Kaisa Pelkonen, Communications Manager, kaisa.pelkonen@hkt.fi, 040 552 3788
Lilla Teatern, Communications Planner, Ida Virkkunen, ida.virkkunen@hkt.fi, 050 357 4250
Helsinki City Theatre, Ensi linja, 00530 Helsinki

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Helsinki City Theatre’s autumn repertoire has been released

At the beginning of autumn 2025, Helsinki City Theatre will premiere Juha Jokela’s new comedy Let’s Play Business, the fresh farce comedy Sutinaa ja säätöä, the historical contemporary drama Kuningatarnäytelmä, the reality-based Aleksi Suomesta and the new family musical Kuka kaappasi aurinko. At Lilla Teatern, Saara Turunen’s Hyena Days, based on her novel, will premiere. The August premiere of Nykyesitysn näyttämö is little_star95 – ooksä online?, a performance that offers an adventure on the internet in the early 2000s. The big hits Moulin Rouge! Musikaali and Veljeni Leijonamieli will continue on the main stage throughout the autumn.

The autumn season on the main stage begins on August 30 with the premiere of the new comedy Let’s Play Business. Acclaimed playwright and director Juha Jokela, one of Finland’s most successful playwrights, will visit the City Theatre for the first time with this accurate and entertaining comedy about working life and how it is portrayed. The challenges of today’s working life are depicted with a humorous touch.

The plot takes place at the Finnish project consulting company HX, where the authoritarian manager Raimo Hemming has recently retired. The company’s employees are trying to adapt to the times after this charismatic but controversial leader, now under the leadership of the new boss Artturi. He strives to introduce a new work culture and unite the “HX Gang” through a more people-oriented leadership. But getting the former boss’s supporters and opponents to pull in the same direction turns out to be easier said than done. By chance, a theatre ensemble has been hired to perform the company’s story – but the artistic director has his own interpretation of the rulebook. The result is an escalating chaos alongside the company’s history, where roles are changed on the fly, sets collapse and nothing goes as planned – a nightmare for the theatre’s CFO.

Starring Wanda Dubiel, Sari Haapamäki, Sanna-June Hyde, Santeri Kinnunen, Aksinja Lommi, Kai Lähdesmäki, Martti Manninen, Unto Nuora, Raili Raitala, Ursula Salo and Jan-Christian Söderholm.

The autumn on the Arena stage kicks off this autumn with the new and fresh horror comedy Sutinaa ja säätöä (The Cottage), which premieres on 3 September under the direction of Sari Siikander. The comedy, written by Sandy Rustin, had its Broadway premiere in 2023 and is set in 1920s England – but its twists and turns are still highly relevant today.

Sylvia and her secret lover Beau have arrived for their annual villa weekend. This time, Sylvia drops a real news bombshell – she has left her husband. But that’s just the beginning, because soon the couple’s respective spouses also show up at the same villa. A real Pandora’s box of secrets is opened, and both the characters’ identities and their views on marriage are put into a whirling carousel.

The performance features Ella Lymi, Pihla Penttinen, Heikki Ranta, Emilia Sinisalo, Sauli Suonpää and Mikko Virtanen.

On the small stage, Kuningatarnäytelmä will premiere on 28 August. The play is about Queen Kristina, who ruled over Sweden from 1632 to 1654. The historical contemporary drama, written by Jussi Moila and directed by Sini Pesonen, breathes contemporary themes such as power, gender and love.

Enormous expectations are placed on the young Kristina. She is a girl who is raised to be a king. A woman who is expected to secure the future of the royal family through marriage and giving birth to an heir. A ruler who must be the face of the world and leader of a war-torn country. But Kristina wants something completely different. She wants to make dark and uneducated Sweden a guiding star in science and art, a kingdom of European freedom and education. And Kristina wants her lady-in-waiting Belle. The pressure between the public role and private life creates wild, funny and touching drama.

In the role of Queen Kristina, we see the actor, musician and activist Elsi Sloan and Belle is played by Aino Sirje. The other roles are played by Rauno Ahonen, Pekka Huotari, Vappu Nalbantoglu, Alvari Stenbäck, Kaisa Torkkel, Mikko Vihma and Joachim Wigelius.

The second premiere on the small stage is Aleksi Suomesta. It premieres on 9 October and is a true story about the Finnish professional soldier Aleksi Lysander (1989–2024). The play is dramatised by Ari-Pekka Lahti and it is based on Tuomas Kyrö’s book of the same name (WSOY, 2023). The play is directed by Tuomas Rinta-Panttila.

Aleksi, who grew up on his grandparents’ farm in Oulu and is the son of a Finnish mother and a Senegalese father, decided to become a soldier and joined the French Foreign Legion at the age of 18. He served in Afghanistan and in several African countries. In 2022, he went to Ukraine as one of the first volunteers, returned to Finland for a while, but returned to Ukraine in the fall of 2024, where he died in the last days of the year.

The play has been developed in collaboration with Aleksi Lysander, and his wish was that the performance would be carried out and give as honest a picture as possible of the traces of war and how war is never the right solution. The sensitive and gripping story is performed by actors Roderick Kabanga and Eetu Känkänen.

The family musical Kuka kaappasi aurinko, based on Mauri Kunnas’s Kalevala-themed book, will premiere at Studio Pasila on 25 September. The performance is dramatised and directed by musician, writer and dramaturg Liila Jokelin, who also composes the music together with multi-instrumentalist Lauri Schreck.

In Väinölä, the sun shines golden in the sky. So golden that the greedy Louhi from the North has an idea: what if she were to steal the sun and forge it into gold coins? Together with her pack of wolves, Louhi catches the sun in a cave, and it gets cold in Väinölä. In the North, on the other hand, it gets unbearably hot when the trapped sun burns angrily in its cave. But the sun has a power that not even Louhi can stop. Even the most greedy learn what is really important in life.

The roles in this funny, wise and insightful play are played by Juha Jokela, Jouko Klemettilä, Sanna Majuri, Jari Pehkonen, Inkeri Raittila, Sanna Saarijärvi, Antti Timonen and Leenamari Unho. Recommended age from 5 years.

At Lilla Teatern, award-winning director and author Saara Turunen’s dramatisation of the novel Hyena Days will premiere on 11 September. The Hyena Days is directed by Turunen himself and is aimed at everyone who has ever strived for something, faced difficulties or been thrown into a world they do not know.

The work delves into a story of reproduction and depicts a woman’s journey from fertility treatments to having children. The performance is a report-like story and a depiction of time in which the private and the social intersect and merge. Beneath the surface, the work deals with physicality, control and a culture of self-reliance. The performance does not provide ready-made answers, but instead offers scenes and moments that the audience can interpret in their own way.

Starring Kreeta Salminen, Elmer Bäck, Katja Küttner, Pia Runnakko and Alexander Wendelin.

The autumn premiere of the Nykyesitysn näyttämö will take place on 7 August at Studio Pasila with the nostalgia trip little_star95 – ooksä online? The work, conceptualised by Sara Koiranen and Ida Hägglund together with the working group, invites you to a journey through a teenage girl’s room and evening hangout on the internet in the early 2000s. On stage, we see Hilma Kotkaniemi.

During the autumn season, the mega success Moulin Rouge continues! Musical and the classic fairy tale Veljeni Leijonamieli on the main stage. The stand-up club Club act!one will continue in Studio Pasila, and the ever-popular Kiviä taskussa, which will have its 1000th performance this autumn, will continue on the Arena stage. The beloved event Kahvilla kirjailijan kanssa will also continue in the foyer of the main stage, and the children’s theatre performance Mollin iltahepuli will continue in the foyer of the small stage.

Read the latest issue of the Teatteriin magazine here.

Upcoming premieres at Helsinki City Theatre

20.3.2025 DREAMER, age. Annamari Keskinen and Ryan Mason
10.4.2025 Beauty and the Monsters, reg. Linda Wallgren
29.4.2025 Stage of the contemporary performance: Agora – Two Mermaids in an Empty Pool, reg. Minna Lund
7.8.2025 Stage for a contemporary performance: little_star95 – ooksä online?, concept Sara Koiranen, Ida Hägglund and the working group
28.8.2025 The Queen’s Play, reg. Sini Pesonen
30.8.2025 Let’s Play Business, reg. Juha Jokela
3.9.2025 Buzzing and adjustment, reg. Sari Siikander
11.9.2025 Hyena Days, reg. Saara Turunen
25.9.2025 Who Captured the Sun, reg. Liila Jokelin
9.10.2025 Aleksi from Finland, reg. Tuomas Rinta-Panttila

Performances that continue on the repertoire in the autumn of 2025

Moulin Rouge! Musical, dir. Anders Albien
My Brother Lionheart, reg. Jakob Höglund
Stones in the Pocket, reg. Pentti Kotkaniemi
Mollin iltahepuli, reg. Jenny Jumppanen
Club act!one
Kahvilla kirjailija

Gästspel

1.4.2025 Not to make a new issue of this, Sinikka Nopolas memorial concert, Arena-scenen
9.5.2025 Hyppy lireenien tuleen poetry concert, Arena stage
From 13.5.2025 Strömsö, Red Nose Company, Lilla Teatern
20. and 21.11.2025 Iikka Kivi – A special relationship with nature, Arena-scenen
22.11.2025 André Wickström 30 years on stage – and there is no end in sight!, Arena Stage

Helsinki City Theatre’s ticket sales and customer service can be reached by phone at (09) 3940 22 Mon–Fri at noon. 10–17. Ticket office on First Line 2, Mon–Fri at noon. 12–17, Djurgårdsvägen 5, Sat (performance days) at noon. 11–18.30 and one hour before the performance and via Lippu.fi, Mon–Sat at noon. 9 a.m.–9 p.m., Sun at 9 a.m. 10–16, tel. 0600 900 900 (€2/min + local call charge) www.hkt.fi

Pictured in the press release: Let’s Play Business, pictured by Martti Manninen, Sanna-June Hyde, Wanda Dubiel, Santeri Kinnunen and Ursula Salo. Photo: Otto-Ville Väätäinen.

Further information, media tickets and interview requests:
Kaisa Pelkonen, Head of Communications, kaisa.pelkonen@hkt.fi, 040 552 3788
Lilla Teatern, Communications Planner Ida Virkkunen, ida.virkkunen@hkt.fi, 050 357 4250
Helsinki City Theatre, First Line, 00530 Helsinki