Swiss theatre scene

Switzerland has a long and rich theatre tradition. Basel, Bern, Geneva and Zurich all have internationally renowned large institutions, with or without orchestras and or ballet ensembles. But there are also numerous small theatres, sometimes specialising in classical repertory, comedy, or fringe productions.
Most plays and productions are regionally or linguistically rooted:

• Theatre in German: In the years of the Nazi period in Germany, Zurich’s Schauspielhaus was an important centre for theatre where many German refugee writers, directors, and actors performed or staged productions. The country’s two most outstanding postwar dramatists, Max Frisch and Friedrich Dürrenmatt, first staged their plays at the Schauspielhaus.
• Theatre in French: In French-speaking Switzerland, Théâtre Vidy-Lausanne is an integrated part of the professional theatre system of France and as a matter of course coproduces works with major municipal theatres such as the Théâtre de la Ville in Paris. In Geneva, the large Comédie de Genève as well as the smaller Théâtre Le Poche and Forum Meyrin explicitly focus on contemporary authors.
• Theatre in Italian and Romansh: Similarly, there are independent theatrical troupes in Switzerland’s Italian- and Romansh-speaking cities and towns, which have no major municipal theatres.

Opera and dance
Opera and dance are also well represented in the major Swiss centres: Zurich, Geneva, and Lausanne have opera houses. There are professional ballet ensembles in these cities and Basel, with the Zurich Ballet and Lausanne’s Béjart Ballet among the most known.

Small and cellar theatre
In Switzerland, cabaret has a long tradition alongside the established theatre world. For more than 30 years, Switzerland's cabaret scene has enjoyed an excellent reputation beyond the continent. Important for the development of the scene was the city of Bern in the 1970s with its cellar theatres in the historic old town.

Open-air theatre
Switzerland also has an abundance of open-air productions despite the often inclement weather. There are open-air stages for productions of William Tell in Interlaken, and for the Fête des Vignerons in Vevey. Another staging of the William Tell story is held every four years in Altdorf, in Tell’s historical homeland. Calderon’s baroque masterpiece Theatre of the World is staged at regular intervals in Einsiedeln, Switzerland's best-known pilgrimage site. In the Romansh-language area, the Cumpagnia da teater Laax, another amateur troupe, produces an open-air play every ten years involving more or less the entire village. Also in the Romansh area, the first permanent Rhaeto-Romanic theatre was created a few years ago in the castle of Riom.