Peeter Jalakas is the best-known theatre manager in the Republic of Estonia that regained its independence in 1991. He is not necessarily the best but clearly the most versatile in his field. His works exude vision, ambition and a passion for glory. There are exciting ideas and a good sales strategy. He wants to be noticed and has been able to be so with success. It was Peeter Jalakas who organised the first international theatre festival in Estonia, founded the first private theatre and brought modern technological productions to local stages.

In 1988, Peeter Jalakas who had recently graduated from the Pedagogical Institute with a degree in theatre production staged the play I Am Cold by a young journalist Hans H. Luik. The play was performed by a semi-professional troupe in a cold underground room in Tallinn City Hall, a monstrosity of Soviet architecture. That type of theatre was poor and scant but popular. A year later, Jalakas formed his own company Ruto Killakund and began experimenting with grandiose open-air spectacles - there were fireworks displays in dark autumn sky, drums were beaten, actors walked around on stilts wearing hare's masks with long ears. Jalakas's street theatre combined naivete and technology. Estonia had never seen anything like this. It was at least five years before the arrival of big show business.

In 1990, Jalakas launched his most significant theatre venture yet - the alternative theatre festival Baltoscandal. Estonia was still a part of the Soviet Union and the festival that took place in the resort Pärnu was anything but conventional: there were no academic theatres, no pieces by our "socialist brothers", Jalakas invited companies and innovators from the most imperialist West.

The second Baltoscandal took place two years later. This time in the Republic of Estonia. One of the most important political spectacles in newly independent Estonia - the monetary reform was carried out during Baltoscandal, seemingly as a part of the alternative and playful festival. Soviet roubles became souvenirs. By summer 2002, which saw the last Baltoscandal so far, in a way a circle had been completed - while ten years ago everything that seeped through the iron curtain was novel and amazing for Estonians, today Western theatre is available to everybody, one just needs to buy a ticket and fly abroad. However, Peeters Jalakas still delivered - the headliners at this year's festival came from Russia. Russian theatre is innovatory and unavailable in Estonia at the moment!

Peeter Jalakas's other offspring, the Von Krahl Theatre has also reached its teens by now. This theatre, located on a cosy side street in Tallinn's old town, that will celebrate its first decade in October 2002 is usually referred to as the first private theatre in Estonia. It is true, though, that Peeter's first "home theatre", the small VAT Theatre is also still active and five years older than Von Krahl. But VAT Theatre has always been considered more as a troupe than a proper theatre, they did not even have their own hall until autumn 2001.

By 1994, Jalakas's experiment at managing a private theatre had justified itself in the eyes of the government, so much so that an unexpected decision was made: Peeter Jalakas was asked to take over Rakvere Theatre that had fallen to strange times. An attempt was made to utilise experience obtained in managing an alternative theatre in order to save a traditional state theatre. These were hard and bizarre times for Rakvere Theatre. The new manager employed new actors and totally changed the repertoire. Rakvere became innovatory but lost its audience. Happening performances were cancelled due to lack of audience and the theatre plummeted into debt problems. The experiment ended with Rakvere Theatre going bankrupt both in artistic and economic sense. However, most of the theatre building was renovated during Jalakas's leadership and the building of a smaller hall commenced. Manager Jalakas who had founded a theatre in Tallinn also laid the foundation for Rakvere Theatre. The fact that Baltoscandal arrived in Rakvere during Jalakas's stint as the manager proved beneficial in the long term. Baltoscandal really worked in Rakvere! The small town in northern Estonia that was unsuitable for experiments lasting all season proved a great spot for a week long festival where young theatre goers gathered from all over Estonia.

After two years in Rakvere, Peeter Jalakas turned his interest to Tallinn once again. He expanded the range of Von Krahl and, moving with the changing times, managed to negotiate for a small but necessary state benefit. (In recent years, the Von Krahl Theatre has received an annual state benefit of 1-1,5 million kroons. This is six to seven times less than the benefit for an average Estonian repertoire theatre but still three to four times more than granted to any other non-state theatre.) In 1998, the theatre employed five young actors and actresses who had graduated from the state theatre school. If one was to look for a common denominator for the Von Krahl Theatre and the artistic aspirations of Peeter Jalakas, the term "technological theatre" would come to mind. Jalakas was the first in Estonian theatre who started to actively exploit the possibilities of modern technology. Video clips and screens became an integral part of his productions. In the late 1990s, Von Krahl attracted attention by experimenting with modern opera. In Jalakas's interpretation, Igor Stravinski's The Soldier's Tale became a miniature puppet show accompanied by NYYD Ensemble who are best known as promoters of modern Estonian music. A mini-opera inspired by the confession novel Olivia. Master Class by the Estonian author and artist Ervin Õunapuu was next, this time Jalakas focussed on multimedia elements and what was happening on stage was intermingled with video segments. The production that brought the most fame and international recognition during this period was definitely Estonian Games. The Wedding (1996). An ironically squinting overview of Estonian history where Jalakas playfully employs the post-modern by joining together primeval national identity (a Setu choir had an important role in the piece) and the modern global mentality (video, computer simulation). It is only natural that such a production is constantly changing together with the development of technical possibilities, it was not a finished and determined entity but a continually altering multimedia production. Jalakas's continued in the same vein with his biggest project in recent years - multimedia production Grail, based on the legends of King Arthur and the knights of the Round Table searching for the Holy Grail, was first performed in spring 2001. The production (again) combined live actors and moving pictures, acting was going on simultaneously on the stage and on three video screens.

Still, Jalakas's work as the manager of the Von Krahl Theatre has, in recent years, claimed more significance than the plays produced by him. The most talked about production in the Von Krahl Theatre during recent seasons was, without a doubt, Connecting People - a play by Jouko Turkka, the enfant terrible of Finnish society and culture, a wild and brutal text focussing on the most famous Finnish businessman, Jorma Ollila, chief executive of the mobile phones company Nokia. Who else but Jalakas, the reckless and shocking, would have permitted this text to be performed on stage in Estonia?! (In Finland, Turkka's homeland, actors refused to participate in the production.) What will be next? Already back in 1991, Jalakas revealed in an interview: "I have made few decisions in life, my life, like my work, has been determined by chance. I have consciously left things to chance but with one prerequisite - preliminary work has been very thorough to allow chance to single out the right thing." And Jalakas carries on. Searching and waiting for new chances. Today he is the main organiser of Baltoscandal, he manages the Von Krahl Theatre and the organic food restaurant in the basement of the theatre. The business that started as the popular Von Krahl Theatre bar still caters for the theatre as well. And vice versa - the theatre attracts potential restaurant goers.