Theatre responds to loneliness and increases inclusion – Helsinki City Theatre’s audience outreach in spring 2026

The audience outreach of the Helsinki City Theatre is part of the theatre’s basic mission: it builds encounters, lowers the threshold for participation and creates space for shared experiences during and outside performances. In 2025, HKT’s audience outreach organised 651 events and public events aimed at different target groups, with 18,661 participants. Major societal challenges, such as loneliness, are strongly taken into account when planning audience outreach.

“Loneliness is not combated by being alone, but by increasing easy opportunities to participate. That is why in audience outreach we create accessible events where you can meet others, be heard and be encouraged to experiment and learn new things. Sometimes we bring theatre directly to where people live. In the spring of 2026, our projects will take performing arts to the elderly, for example, in assisted living facilities and, on the other hand, to the residents of Malmi in Malmi,” says Mirja Neuvonen, who is in charge of audience outreach at the Helsinki City Theatre.

All of this will be in store for audience outreach in the spring of 2026:

Inclusion and encounters for the elderly

The Art for the Homes of the Elderly project, which has been running since 2021, brings participatory art activities into the everyday lives of the elderly in Helsinki and invites them to join in doing and performing themselves. The City of Helsinki supports the entity by funding the activities.

In the spring of 2026, the whole will be visible in many ways: In the From Story to Theatre activities, the elderly will become story theatre actors and perform in different parts of Helsinki. The Stories I Carry performance, on the other hand, takes theatre directly to housing units and assisted living facilities, and the photo exhibition Light Draws the Furrows of Your Face continues its tour in spaces open to the public. The spring culminates in the Time to Shine festival, which offers performing arts, encounters and workshops for people over the age of 65 in the foyers of the Helsinki City Theatre for two days.

Theatre experiences and activities for children and young people

In the audience work of the Helsinki City Theatre, children and young people are encouraged to participate, experience and make theatre themselves. Inclusion is built both in long-term cooperation with schools and educational institutions and in national projects.

Art Testers is the largest youth cultural project in Finland’s history, where eighth-graders get to experience a theatre performance as part of the school day, take a peek behind the scenes of the theatre and think together about what art feels like and what it means to them. Helsinki City Theatre has been involved in Art Testers from the very beginning of its operations, i.e. since 2017.

In cooperation with schools and educational institutions, theatre is introduced through various workshops, pre-party and workshop packages, as well as learning materials, and theatre is experimented with as part of teaching.

In the Young Stage project, young theatre enthusiasts aged 13–19 work together with professional theatre makers and prepare their own performances of new playwrights’ texts for the stages of professional theatres. Helsinki City Theatre has been involved in the national Young Stage activities as a partner theatre and has been developing the activities since its inception in 2013.

At Shed Music Theatre, young people aged 10–19 practise their theatre, music and movement skills together with professionals and get to perform in their own musical on the stage of a professional theatre. The activities are made possible by theShed Foundation, established  by Elisa in 2017, which supports diverse child and youth work that takes special needs children into account.

We also act as a theatre sponsor for children born in Helsinki in 2021 as part of the Culture Sponsors programme, in which children and their families are invited to join the world of culture at an early age. The events offered by the theatre are unhurried and atmospheric art moments that are designed with the child’s age in mind, and that offer shared experiences for children and their immediate adults. The autumn performance for godchildren will be published at the end of the summer.

Theatre as part of everyday life and neighbourhoods

Audience outreach brings theatre into the everyday lives of city residents in the regional Pääroolissa Malmi art project, in which theatre is made together with the residents of the area and taken to places where people live, meet and act in their everyday lives. The activities are based on the model of cultural work funded by the City of Helsinki (Helsinki Model), in which art institutions are encouraged to take art to different districts.

In the spring of 2026, Malmitalo will open the Art for Homes photo exhibition, which will return to the atmosphere of last year’s home performances. The photo exhibition will also tour Malmi and other spaces in Helsinki. On Tuesday, 14 April at 6 pm, Malmitalo will also host a performance called PROSESSISSA, which opens up the ways of group-based theatre work and invites the audience to influence the content of the stage work created during the evening.

In addition, the Malmi project will feature a touring children’s theatre performance called My Neighbour, which is based on the thoughts of daycare centre children in Malmi about their neighbours and home environment, and brings different generations together to enjoy performances in local spaces and communities. My neighbour’s performances will start in autumn 2026.

Low threshold for participating in theatre

The foundation of the Helsinki City Theatre’s audience work is to make participation in the theatre easy, open and accessible even for those for whom coming to the theatre is not a matter of course.

At the popular Coffee with a Writer events, the audience will be able to meet authors and artists in a relaxed conversation in the foyer of the main stage. On Thursday 19 March, Finlandia-nominated author and dramaturg Marjo Niemi will be our guests, and on Wednesday 8 April, writer and theatre director Riko Saatsi will be our guests. The events are accessible and free of charge.

You can also get to know the theatre on behind-the-scenes tours and in artist meetings, which open up the everyday life of the theatre and the creation of performances to the audience. Helsinki City Theatre regularly organises open and accessible backstage tours, as well as tours for groups and schools. Maker meetings are held throughout the year, both as open events and on request. In these encounters, the audience gets to peek behind the scenes and talk directly with theatre professionals.

Photo in the release: In the photo, the From Story to Theatre performance at Studio Elsa, photographer Sonja Tolonen.

Helsinki City Theatre’s ticket sales and customer service by phone (09) 394022 Mon-Fri 9 a.m. to 5.30 p.m. Ticket offices Ensi linja 2, Mon-Fri 11-17.30, Eläintarhantie 5, Sat (on performance days) 11-18 and one hour before the performance and Lippu.fi, Mon-Sat 9-21, Sun 10-18, tel. 0600 900 900 (2 €/min + local network charge) www.hkt.fiFurther information on audience outreach at the Helsinki City Theatre:Mirja Neuvonen, Head of Audience Outreach, mirja.neuvonen@hkt.fi, 040 352 3969Further information on the Art for the Homes of the Elderly project:
Project Coordinator Reetta Kankare, reetta.kankare@hkt.fi, 050 434 4930Further information about the Malmi in the Main Role project:
Audience Worker Jenny Jumppanen, jenny.jumppanen@hkt.fi, 040 652 9932