Joensuu to stage world premiere of Kankimäki adaptation

Joensuu City Theatre will stage the world premiere of a theatrical adaptation of Mia Kankimäki’s novel Women I Think About at Night on 20 February 2027, Yle reports.

The production, titled Women I Think About at Night: Following the Footsteps of 19th-Century Women Explorers, will be the theatre’s main spring production on its main stage. Johanna Sorjonen has written and will direct the adaptation, which focuses on the stories of 19th-century women explorers.

The novel was published in 2018, and its translation rights have been sold in more than 20 countries. It has also been published in the United States and Canada. The US edition came out in 2020, when Forbes included it among the most notable new books of the month.

The stage version will be a musical theatre production, with music composed by the theatre’s conductor, Eve Pietarinen. Dance students from Riveria vocational college in Outokumpu will also perform.

The theatre’s spring programme will also include The Real Princess, based on a classic fairy tale by H. C. Andersen. Most of the productions that premiered in the autumn will continue in the spring.