FLAGSHIP PROGRAMMES
National Network
Czech Republic
Address
Pivovarská 3164/15Country
City
OstravaProvince
Česká republikaStreet address 2
1675/17Mobile Phone
+420732305966Telephone
+420 596 100 525E-Mail (2)
hag25@seznam.czE-Mail (3)
podatelna@divadloloutek.czWebsite
Click HereYear of Establishment
1953Contact Person1
Hana VolkmerováJob Title 1
head of Theatre lecturing department Puppet Theatre OstravaContact Person 2
Alena PunčochářováJob Title 2
Head of the organisationOrganisation Type
Public InstitutionFields of Activity
Others, Youth and educationGeneral Information
The Ostrava Puppet Theatre, a contributory organization, is a professional stage for children and youth from the entire Moravian-Silesian Region. The founder is the Statutory City of Ostrava.
On weekdays, the Ostrava Puppet Theatre performs for pupils of kindergartens, primary and secondary schools. On Thursday evenings, all theatre enthusiasts - children and adults - will enjoy the theatre's performances for the general public. The toddler performances for toddlers aged 0.5 to 2 years with and from 2 to 3 years are gaining special attention here.
The Ostrava Puppet Theatre also offers artistic and educational programmes - seminars and workshops for pupils (primary schools, secondary schools, high schools, academies) and teachers, lecturers, artists. There is an inspiring and educational platform MeetPuppets in our theatre. The Puppet Theatre Ostrava does not slack off even during the holidays, when it organises the traditional Pimprléto for young and old alike.
Every odd-numbered year, Ostrava Puppet Theatre becomes the proud organizer of the Spectaculo Interesse festival, which is not only the largest puppetry festival in the Czech Republic, but also one of the most important in the whole of Europe. Thanks to this festival, every two years Ostrava transforms into a European centre of puppetry and presents to the general public top puppetry troupes from all over the world.
Mission and Objectives
Since 1999, the Ostrava Puppet Theatre has been housed in the building at Černá louka, which in 2011 was supplemented by an extension with an alternative stage. Today, under the leadership of director Alena Punčochářová and artistic director Jakub Maksymov, the Ostrava Puppet Theatre remains home to thousands of stories and fairy tales. Every day it brings a world of fantasy and art to the stage, taking its place in the hearts of children and adults alike.
The extension offers visitors a theatre hall with a variable auditorium, followed by an amphitheatre and a café with a puppet gallery. In addition to fairy tales for children, the alternative stage also hosts performances for adult audiences. Expert lecturers conduct creative and therapeutic theatre workshops for school groups and the public on the stage, and there is also a children's studio focused on puppet theatre. We are interested in creative education and its connections with theatre and puppetry. We believe that creative education is the right direction in teaching children which helps in developing creativity, cooperation and critical thinking among children and promotes their self-esteem through experience.
Main Projects / Activities
We realized performances with puppets and movement performances and puppetry and educational workshops for all ages.
• Puppet performances for toddlers aged 6 months to 2 years, and from 2 to 3 years.
• Puppet performances for children aged 3 to 6 years.
• Puppet performances for pupils aged 6 to 16 years.
• Puppet performances for adults.
Spectaculo Interesse. The Spectaculo Interesse Festival has gradually become the largest international puppetry festival in the Czech Republic and one of the most important in Europe. Thanks to it, top puppeteers from Belgium, Belarus, Brazil, the Czech Republic, China, Finland, France, Italy, Israel, Japan, South Korea, Canada, Lithuania, Hungary, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Austria, Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Switzerland, Taiwan, Ukraine, Great Britain have performed in Ostrava.
In our theatre we have created an inspiring and educational platform called MeetPuppets. It is a series of educational seminars for educators, students of pedagogy, artists, theatre lecturers and leisure trainers, to whom we aim to offer workshops and seminars to inspire, enrich, develop their skills and personalities in their work. We also try to show them how to work with the visit of a theatre performance in teaching and what are the possibilities of its reflection. In September 2025, for example, we are planning a workshop for kindergarten teachers and museum and gallery educators with the actresses and instrumentalists of the Belgian theatre Klankennest.
How can you contribute to the Network in your country?
As we organise workshops for students and teachers we can promote the ALF Foundation in our seminars and workshops and activities. We can honestly claim to network and be a member of the ALF Foundation and speak and spread its good name. We can put the Foundation's logo on our website and communicate extensively with both the ALF Foundation and the people in our country with whom we work. The goals of the ALF Foundation in terms of contributing to peace through art. Also, environmental issues and sustainability resonate with our organization. We are also planning an upcycling production and other eco-innovations within our institution. We also often work with recycled materials in our creative puppetry workshops.
Why do you want to join the ALF Network?
We would like to join the network of the ALF with our Puppet Theatre Ostrava, because we have long been involved in creating for toddlers and children and youth and teachers, not only on an artistic level, but also on a professional level. We would like to share our work and experience with other people and creators from other countries and open ourselves to joint cooperation and collaboration. We are interested in what is happening in the world, so we also regularly go to foreign festivals dealing with our work and especially puppetry and on educational field. We would like to meet some other people from other countries and to communicate with them and to cooperate with other people. We would also like to open up our seminars and workshops within our MeetPuppets platform to foreign pedagogues and artists, as well as experts who could lecture with us. Our theatre is open to new contacts, new cooperations and new experiences. We would like to be connected with the people from another countries and another branches.
Additional Information
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