at Bollhuset, then officially called Kungliga Svenska Skådeplatsen (Royal Swedish Stage). In the 1720s and 1730s, the interest for amateur theater was great in Stockholm and a lot of temporary amateur troupes performed among the aristocracy, the most known one "Count De la Gardies comedients", made by noble youths. After the amateur-performance Tobias by a couple of idealistic students at the birthday of king Frederick I of Sweden in 1737, during a period when the building was empty after the last foreign troupe had left, the opinion wanted a theater in their own language. This was granted by the Riksdag, who encouraged the establishment of the first native troupe of actors. One of the arguments taken up in the parliament was the large costs of the expensive foreign troupes. The first Swedish comedy performed on a public stage, , was performed in October 1737 with Johan Palmberg and Beata Sabina Straas in the leading parts, and during the 1740s, the plays in was performed by native actors, in the native language, which made it accessible for the public for the first time. At this point, the theater had eight hundred seats. Sweden now saw theater, opera and ballet performed in the native language by native artists for the first time. It was temporarily closed by regent queen Ulrika Eleonora of Sweden in 1738 because of the clerical opposition, but soon reopened. The theater was first under the rule of the state; its first play was a political one. This did not last long and from 1740 it was ruled by the theater troupe themselves and entirely depended on the audience after the loss of government support. This first attempt to start a native Swedish theater was interrupted. Though the Swedish theatre was popular among the public, the aristocracy, who were French-influenced, was less enthusiastic. After the 1753-54 season, the Swedish theatre was expelled from their localities in Bollhuset by queen Louisa Ulrika of Prussia, who hired a French theater company instead. The Swedish troop split in two; one, the Stenborg Troupe under Petter Stenborg, performed in smaller houses, "touring" around the city of Stockholm and in Finland, and the other toured in the countryside under Johan Bergholtz and Peter Lindahl. During the period of 1754–71, Swedish plays were only performed in the city stage of Bollhuset two times; Syrinx (1761) and Herkules på skiljovägen (1762), by the Stenborg Troupe, to