Theatre organisations

The Estonian Theatre and Music Museum (abbreviated TMM) is located in Tallinn’s Old Town, in a building connected to the historic city wall and Assauwe defence tower at Müürivahe 12.

The museum began in 1924 with a movement to collect the legacy of composer and organist Peeter Süda. The museum’s theatre collections are based on the legacy of actor Heino Vaks, which was used to establish the Theatre Museum Association in 1937, which merged with the Music Museum Association in 1941. The last major merger took place in 2019, when the state institutions Estonian Theatre and Music Museum and Estonian History Museum merged to form the Estonian History Museum Foundation.

The museum’s theatre collection contains over 700 theatre and personal collections. The collected programmes, photographs, reviews and director’s books provide a good overview of the development and current state of Estonian theatre. The museum’s art collection includes models of stage designs by prominent theatre artists, costume and decoration designs, and witty caricatures. The library contains a wide range of theatre and music literature, as well as play collections from the Arts Council and several Estonian theatres. Newspaper clippings cover all Estonian theatre productions from the 1960s to 2007, and are available in digital form. The Estonian Theatre and Music Museum’s photo collection is divided into collections of negatives, paper photos and digital photos.

The museum’s permanent exhibition is located in Tallinn’s Old Town at Müürivahe 12. The museum also has a branch, Estonia’s only museum dedicated to a theatre personality, the Särevi Theatre Room (Tina 23-13, Tallinn).