Venue: Mihai Eminescu National Theatre
Town: Timișoara, RO

The Mihai Eminescu National Theatre (Romanian: Teatrul Național „Mihai Eminescu”; abbreviated TNTm) is a theatre company in Timișoara, Romania, subordinated to the Ministry of Culture. It shares the same building with the Romanian National Opera, the Csiky Gergely Hungarian State Theatre and the German State Theatre. It was founded in 1945 after decades of concerted efforts to establish a Romanian-language theatre in the city. The relatively late establishment of the Romanian theatre in Banat is the result of the precarious social and political conditions of the Romanians within the Austro-Hungarian Empire. In the absence of the right and the possibilities to establish artistic institutions, during this period a rich amateur activity of Romanian "dilettante" troupes flourished. The Society of Dilettantes from Timișoara, made up of 13 members, started its activity in the old districts of the city (Maiere and Fabric). Using the stages of some public places, especially cafes, the performances of Timișoara dilettantes mainly focused on the works of Vasile Alecsandri and some local authors. The first Romanian-language theatre performance presented by a troupe of dilettantes - Fantasma by Ion C. Lerescu - took place on 1 March 1870, in the Fabric suburb, in a room of the Tigrul Hotel in Timișoara. Several tours of professional theatre troupes (1871 - Mihail Pascaly's troupe, 1881-1882 - George Augustin Petculescu's troupe from Lugoj) partially compensated for the lack of a permanent Romanian theatre in Timișoara. After 1920, until 1945, Timișoara's theatrical activity was characterized by the media struggle for a Romanian theatre in this city (remarkable in this sense being the efforts of writers such as Lucian Blaga, Camil Petrescu or George Călinescu) and the struggle to maintain a permanent theatrical movement through some troupes temporarily established in Timișoara: Leonard-Maximilian Company (in 1920, with permanent premises in Timișoara), Migri Troupe (1922), Craio