The play, based on Antti Hyyryse’s debut novel, is up for the Thalia prize. The theatre prize is awarded to a performance that stimulates social debate and attracts new audiences.
The Last Atlantis is nominated for the Thalia Theatre Prize. A total of seven finalists from Finnish theatre productions have been selected by journalists and critics.
– The Last Atlantis does not preach, but shows, with irony, gentleness and understanding, how everyone’s individual consumption decisions are stealthily destroying their own living space in the world.
Antti Hyyrynen, who plays the lead character in Stam1na, has not only produced a play and a novel, but also an album of the same name in 2010. The album was awarded an environmental prize at the time.
Feedback from young people is the best
Hyyrynen answers the phone in the middle of band practice. The man is talking brass about the candidacy.
– I am completely surprised that the show has been received so openly nationwide.
Hyyrynen has been responsible for the show’s music and sound design. He has received good feedback from professionals in the theater industry, but the best feedback has come from young people.
– The audience has seen a gang that doesn’t normally go to the theater. Kasi graders have been there as art testers, who have not been using their cell phones during the performance and focused on following the drama. It couldn’t be better, Hyyrynen says.
Hyyrynen, who wrote his second book during the corona period, Stam1na is starting to record a new album and it’s been a long time since the theater performance. There may be something new on the theater front as well, and maybe just in connection with the Last Atlantis.
– Something big is coming, but I dare not reveal what, because I am only the author and sound designer of the original work, laughs Hyyrynen.
The public chooses the winner
In addition to Lappeenranta, among the seven finalists for the Thalia award for the performance of the year are works from Tampere, Turku, one international co-production and two works from theaters in Helsinki.
The candidates for the Thalia award are Tampere Theatre’s Anastasia, Blaue Frau’s Crimes of Passion, Grus Grus theater’s and Tehdas Teatter’s Extra-virgin Gospel, Kemi city theater’s Kemi – memo from the trees, Teatteri Viirussen’s Pelikanen and Matriarchaat’s Sámi Pavilion / Venice Biennale 2022.
The public will vote for the winner, who will be announced on March 27 at a joint celebration of theater, dance and circus people on World Theater Day.