Théâtre Libre
The Free Theatre was established by a group of students and staff from the University of Canterbury in 1979. Through experimentation in performance, they aimed to create a new, entertaining and vibrant theatre in Christchurch. The company's Mission Statement reads "to stage old and new rarely staged European plays in original translations, new New Zealand plays, and classical English texts in an unusual and experimental style". The name Free Theatre was chosen in homage to European predecessors Freie Bühne in Germany and Théâtre Libre in France, groups who were striving for productions to be free from social, political and aesthetic conventions.