The Teatre Nacional de Catalunya was conceived with the basic objective of consolidating high quality theatre both nationally and internationally which, from the capacity for aesthetic risk and the service ethic inherent in a public theatre, completes a theatre panorama characterised by the creativity and richness of the initiatives.

The activities of the Teatre Nacional de Catalunya were inaugurated in the Tallers venue on 12th November 1996 with the premiere of Angels in America. Millennium Approaches, the first part of the trilogy by the American playwright Tony Kushner. This was the culmination of a long process initiated in the early eighties following the contacts established between the Catalan Minister of Culture, Max Cahner, and the actor Josep M. Flotats, then linked to the Comédie Française. Out of these meetings and with the recognition and personal endorsement of Jordi Pujol, President of the Government of Catalonia, emerged the proposal to entrust the creation and organisation of the future Teatre Nacional de Catalunya to Josep M. Flotats. However, before achieving it, Josep M. Flotats, who played Don Juan with the Comédie Française at the Gran Teatre del Liceu on 23rd April 1983, created his own company, subsidised by the Catalan Department of Culture, whose first production was Una jornada particular, by Ettore Scola, at the Teatre Condal, in 1984. Between 1985 and 1994, the company established itself at the Teatre Poliorama, revived as Teatre Català de la Comèdia, with eighteen in-house productions and one co-production, and with the presence of twenty-four guest companies with a total result of 2,046 performances and a total audience of 761,405.

The project of constructing the building currently occupied by the Teatre Nacional de Catalunya was accepted and approved by the Government of Catalonia in 1988 and commissioned to the architect Ricardo Bofill. In January 1990, Josep M. Flotats presented the book A Project for the Teatre Nacional, in which he established his main action lines in clear harmony and correspondence with the work undertaken by his company at the Teatre Poliorama. Thus, based on the notion of a stable company and with the full use of two auditoria, the Sala Gran and the Sala Petita, Josep M. Flotats pointed out what was the “keyword” for the activity of the Teatre Nacional: the alternation of productions (classical and contemporary); the alternation of roles; (...) and the alternation of genres in the confrontation of artistic disciplines (dance, music, song, puppets, circus, mime, audiovisuals, happenings, performances...) and of the aesthetic alternatives.

Once the position of Commissioner of the project for the Teatre Nacional de Catalunya, which Max Cahner had held between 1985 and 1992, was abolished, Flotats assumed full responsibility for the project. In the then final stage of the building, in March 1995, the Government of Catalonia appointed Josep M. Busquets as General Administrator, and Josep M. Flotats as Director-Founder of the Teatre Nacional de Catalunya with the function of directing all the activities necessary to set up the Teatre Nacional and its later management. In June 1995, the limited company Teatre Nacional de Catalunya, SA was established, with the social objective of conceiving, developing and producing all kinds of stage shows, with special attention to original plays in Catalan; performing those produced by it and other productions; organising diverse artistic and cultural events related with the performing arts; designing and constructing all kinds of stage elements for in-house use and third parties, creating audiovisuals and audio recordings; producing publications related with the performing arts.

The official inauguration of the Teatre Nacional de Catalunya, on 11th September 1997 with L’auca del senyor Esteve, was preceded with a speech by the Director-Founder, Josep M. Flotats, which was considered controversial.

Despite the media uproar that ensued, Josep M. Flotats organised and closed the activities of the first complete season of the Teatre Nacional de Catalunya on 30th June. In parallel, on 23rd September 1997, Domènec Reixach was commissioned to develop a new project for the Teatre Nacional de Catalunya, and began to prepare its second season while directing the Centre Dramàtic de la Generalitat, for which it would be the last season.

On 17th December 1997, Domènec Reixach made public the Action Lines for the Teatre Nacional, prepared together with a group of collaborators, once they were presented and approved by the Board of Directors of the Teatre Nacional de Catalunya, and by the Theatre Coordination Board, made up of representatives of the Department of Culture, and of the professional sectors (business people, Adetca, companies, Ciatre, and the Association of Professional Actors and Directors of Catalonia), founded at the end of September 1997 following the situation created by the rescinding of Josep M. Flotats’ contract. At the end of the 1997/1998 season, and after seventeen years and one hundred and eleven days running, the technical and administration services of the Centre Dramàtic de la Generalitat were integrated into the structure of the Teatre Nacional de Catalunya, when Domènec Reixach took over as Director on 1st July 1998.

The new political situation created with the constitution of the new government, in December 2003, laid the bases for the opening of a new era in the future of the Teatre Nacional de Catalunya. Josep Maria Busquets left his position as Deputy Manager of the company Teatre Nacional de Catalunya SA, which he had occupied since June 1995, and in March 2004 Joan Francesc Marco was appointed. On 17th November 2004, the Board of Directors of the Teatre Nacional de Catalunya approved the document For a New Era. On the one hand, the text covers the development of the TNC since its beginnings and, on the other, it notes the objectives for a new era which will have Sergi Belbel as Artistic Director of the Teatre Nacional de Catalunya from the 2006/2007 season.