"Now you're in a monastery!" Estonia's theatre academy graduates recall wild years at Lavaka

The 32nd graduating class of the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre's drama school (Lavaka) is preparing to enter the country's theatre scene. Seventeen students, 11 actors, four directors and two dramaturgs, shared their most memorable moments from four years of intense training. Their stories mix gruelling rehearsal nights, a shrimp-eating contest and genuine warmth.

Estonia's most prestigious acting school, the Lavaka drama school at the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre (EAMT), is sending its 32nd graduating class out into the world. The cohort of 17, 11 actors, four directors and two dramaturgs, is heading to theatres across Estonia after four years of study under course leader Mart Koldits.

Life inside the legendary school

The legends surrounding Lavaka are well known in Estonian theatre circles: relentless pressure, sleepless nights and a total surrender of one's previous life. Oliver-Marcus Reimann (24), who will join Eesti Draamateater as a director this autumn while also working with the national opera Estonia and Ugala, had heard the warnings before he even enrolled. «I had heard things like "you'll be taken apart and nobody will put you back together" or "now you're in a monastery". The truth is probably somewhere in the middle,» he says. The weeks were often short and exhausting, but eventually the right rhythm came.

Actor Mattias Nurga (23), who is heading to Vanemuine in Tartu, recalls Jüri Nael's movement class in the black studio hall as his first visceral memory of school life. «It was the first time we literally swam in each other's sweat. In the literal sense of the word. It was beautiful,» he says. The pace was sometimes so relentless that going home was not worth the effort, during his second year, Nurga spent two consecutive weeks sleeping at the school.

Pressure, growth and shrimp

Nurga draws a parallel between acting and elite sport. «A good performance comes from whoever can best balance tension and relaxation. If you're too tense, the creative channels lock up. But if you're too relaxed, they never open at all,» he says.

Erik Hermaküla (24), who continues at Noorsooteater, takes a more critical view of what the school instilled. He says the more honest question to ask about Lavaka is not how many sleepless nights there were, but how many properly rested ones. «I've picked up a habit of constantly pushing myself, in other words, feeling guilty about resting. That's wrong. It's time to reshape those patterns,» he says.

The cohort's most absurd shared memory, however, belongs to Carolyn Veensalu (23), who is joining Rakvere Teater. She recalls a spontaneous shrimp-eating contest organised by classmates Hermaküla and Alex Paul Pukk on a ferry buffet. «Alex managed 112 and Erik got 118. I made it somewhere around 50. Everyone felt pretty awful afterwards,» she says with a smile.

Destinations and inspirations

Oliver-Marcus Reimann's philosophical takeaway from four years at Lavaka is rooted in a Latin phrase: Qui cadit, surgere potest, he who falls may rise. «Impatience doesn't always lead to the goal. Life is very sinusoidal. And we all make mistakes,» he says.

Eliis-Maria Koit (24), bound for Noorsooteater, describes her school years as a roller-coaster, highs and lows, good times and hard ones. She singles out actress Tiina Tauraite, also one of the course's leading teachers, as her greatest inspiration. «Sometimes I felt that Tiina was more present in our classes than I was myself,» she says.

Mirjam Aavakivi (25), also heading to Vanemuine, keeps one memory particularly close: the class sitting together in a London park, singing spontaneously in the open air. «We're not really the kind of group who just sits around and sings, which is probably why that moment was so memorable. And beautiful,» she says.

Actor Joonas Koff (25) sums up the experience with characteristic economy: «Four years older and five years wiser.» He says stress and anxiety eased with each passing year as students learned to manage it and grew in confidence. His first post-graduation plan, however, is refreshingly unhurried, watch the Football World Cup, go fishing, read his mother Eva Koff's novel Õhuskõndija, and catch up with friends he has barely seen.

A class that performed across Estonia

The 32nd class began studies in 2022 and, over four years, performed in a wide range of diploma productions across the country, from Eesti Noorsooteater and Von Krahl to the Estonian Open Air Museum and Eesti Draamateater, where they staged the raucous King Ubu. Their teachers included, alongside Koldits, directors Tiit Ojasoo and Siret Campbell, and actress Tiina Tauraite.