The Sooster School / Final Performances

Ülo Sooster’s legacy × Ilmar Laaban’s poetry × Tartu New Theatre × actors and directors from the 16th cohort of TÜ VKA

How do you make a production about an artist whose aim was not to depict what he saw, but to expand the viewer’s perception? For whom a picture was not a wall decoration, but an invitation to set off on a journey of discovery. For whom what was depicted had to be one thing and another at the same time—and ideally a third and a fourth as well. And who was also the last Pallas artist, a repressed person and, as befits the previous century, the last genius?

How can this be translated into the language of theatre? Is it possible?

The production uses drawings by Ülo Sooster, archival documentary materials from the Tartu Art Museum, and poetry by Ilmar Laaban, a contemporary of Sooster’s whose fate was entirely different.

The production was created in collaboration with Tartu New Theatre (production team), TÜ Viljandi Culture Academy (acting and directing students), and Tartu Art Museum (collection of drawings by Ülo Sooster).

Cast: Acting and directing students from the 16th cohort of performing arts at TÜ VKA
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

Writer-director: IVAR PÕLLU
Set designer: KRISTIINA PÕLLU
Composer: TAUNO AINTS
Lighting designer: RENE LIIVAMÄGI

Premiere: 25 October 2025, small hall of Tartu New Theatre

Partners: Sooster Foundation, TÜ Viljandi Culture Academy, Tartu Art Museum

Supported by: Estonian Ministry of Culture, City of Tartu, Estonian Cultural Endowment