Speksi is a form of student-made interactive musical theatre that combines acting, dance and live music with an improvisational twist, where the audience gets to influence what happens on stage. With is roots in Sweden, speksi has spread far and wide in Finland and can be found in universities and colleges all over – you can find multiple on just the University of Turku campus alone!

Turkulainen humanistispeksi is the speksi and society of the University of Turku Faculty of Humanities. Formed in 2016, Turkulainen Humanistispeksi or THS puts on a show with a self-written script yearly and arranges activities for spexers year-round.

The audience plays a key part in each speksi performance – making each show a unique experience. The viewers can at any time interrupt the play by yelling “Omstart!” (“Start again!”), at which point whatever just took place on stage gets redone, improvised anew. An omstart can include more directions like “Omstart in Finglish!” or “Omstart band and actors switch places!”, letting you find out if there’s acting talent hidden behind the instruments or vice versa.

The heart of speksi lies in in improvisation, uniqueness and cooperation – and with most members of both Turkulainen humanistispeksi and the audience being native Finnish speakers, speksi activities are only conducted in Finnish as of now – though everyone is welcome to the shows and other public events, such as bar parties.