György Aczél was an emblematic cultural politician in Hungarian theatre history, whose name is associated with the 3T system, which classified all participants in cultural life and their artistic works into supported, tolerated, and prohibited categories on political grounds. The cultural selection operated by the state party, who had a fertile effect on the artistic activities of those in the tolerated and banned categories, while in general it can be said that those in the supported category served the expectations of the socialist regime, but in time their works were mostly filtered out by the canonisation process. The essay examines the individual categories of the 3T system in detail, presents the significant artists and their works of each category, and analyses one of their defining theatre performances. The aim of the study is to provide a comprehensive picture of the theatrical side of the manually controlled cultural policy system.