Saarländisches Landestheater

The Saarländische Landestheater was a theatre in Saarbrücken, Saarland. It began in 1949 as a state-subsidised touring company without its own building. In 1958 it gained a permanent home on Scharnhorststraße with a hundred-seat auditorium. By 1965 the company staged seven productions and gave around three hundred performances a year, drawing 120 000 spectators. Karlheinz Noblé became artistic director in 1974 and expanded the theatre’s reach beyond Saarbrücken to venues in the Saarland, Rhineland-Palatinate and Luxembourg. Its annual budget reached 2.3 million D-Mark before the state government ended its independence in 1988. Despite public opposition the theatre was absorbed into the Saarländische Staatstheater and renamed Kleines Haus. In 1991 it became known as Theater Arnual. Later it was called Theater St. Arnual, but in 2005 the venue closed under cost-cutting measures imposed on the state theatre. The building no longer serves as a theatre today.