With this essay, I discuss recent developments in the institutional fabric of the European state and city theatre system. I propose the perspective of ‘institutional dramaturgy’ as an analytic concept to interrogate these interventions at the systemic, rather than purely aesthetic level of theatre making. They reflect a shift towards ‘post-representational theatre’, to adopt a term coined by Nora Sternfeld, where theatre institutions no longer uncritically affirm and reiterate the cultural hegemony enshrined in the Western canon of dramatic works and its corresponding aesthetic formats, including the immanent criticality of deconstructive Regietheater. The relaunch of Berlin’s Maxim Gorki Theater in 2013 to become a plural ‘theatre for the entire city’ and Milo Rau’s launch of his directorship at NT Gent in 2018 with his programmatic ‘Gent Manifesto’ heralding a ‘city theatre for the future’ count most prominently among the many attempts at city and state theatres across Europe to rethink, rebuild and also repair the institutions from within. This article, however, discusses instead of these already widely debated examples the no less significant, yet hitherto rarely internationally reflected transformations of two quite different theatre institutions in the Belgian capital Brussels: at the Royal Flemish Theatre (KVS) under artistic director Jan Goossens (2001-15), and the relaunch of the ‘Flemish Centre for Amateur Art’ as diverse ‘open talent house’ Zinnema since 2007.