All the Puppet Festivals! June in Prague
- Leah Gaffen
- May 31
- 5 min read
Updated: Jun 6
How many puppet festivals would you guess a country of 10 million people could support?
According to the Czech Loukar (Puppeteer) magazine, there were 26 puppet festivals in the Czech Republic taking place in 2025. As with so many things in the Czech Republic, this is a definite underestimation. I know of several smaller festivals that did not make their list, nor did they include festivals that are not specifically puppet festivals but are magnets for the puppet community (like Letni Letna and the European Regions Festival described below). Suffice it to say there are a lot, and some weeks in the summer I see one Czech puppet festival after another popping up on my Facebook feed. They range from avant-garde events in tiny Baroque cellars to large festivals that take over their host city.
I love taking students to Czech puppet festivals where they get a slice of the magic. Below is an overview of a few upcoming festivals that we'll be attending. All of them promise top artistic quality. Keep an eye on our social media posts for photos and updates about them.
And next summer, maybe you should schedule a trip in June to see them for yourself.
The "big" puppet festivals: Materinka and Skupa
These Czech puppet festivals always take place in June in alternatiing years
Alfa Theatre's Skupa Festival - Plzen
The city of Plzen is known primarily for its beer, but it also has a very special place in the world of puppetry. It is the home town of Josef Skupa who created the iconic father-son puppet duo Spejbl and Hurvinek in the 1920s. And every other year, Plzen's Alfa Puppet Theatre organizes Skupa Plzen: The International Festival of Puppetry and Alternative Theatre.
The festival started in 1967 to mark the 75th birthday of Josef Skupa and the 10th anniversary of his death. Now, it is the longest--running festival of professional Czech theatre. And this year is the 100th birthday of Skupa's Hurvinek character (he was created a few years after the Spejbl) so there will be plenty of exhibitions, shows and events celebrating the Plzen native.
Festival director Jakub Hora, who also runs Alfa Theatre, has brought an increasing number of international groups over the past few years. This year's program includes shows from Canada, Finland, and Spain, as well as the Alfa Theatre's Japanese-Czech co-production based on the 1964 victory of the iconic gymnast Vera Caslavska. Canadian Peter Balkwill from the Old Trout Puppet company will be leading workshops with students at the Prague Theatre Academy and to create an open air show with lantern puppets. For the second time, the festival includes an international Puppet Slam intiated by Plzen-based American puppeteer Valerie Meiss, and for the second time, our students will be performing there!
Visiting the 2023 Materinka Festival with our students! Looking forward to going back this year
Naive Theatre's Materinka Festival - Liberec
The festival is held biennially, and in "off" years the Naive Theatre's Materinka Festival takes place in Liberec. This festival focuses on productions for pre-school and kindergarten children, showing the magical, creative new shows of Czech companies and also a few internatinal groups. The Materinka mascot is a giant blimp in the shape of an elephant. It bobs on the main city square, framed by the Gothic towers and Baroque facades of the buildings behind it.
Both of these festivals take over the host cities. There are workshops for kids, free shows in the park, exhibitions in local museums, and audiences packed with schoolkids. Plus a chance to see the award-winning shows. What's not to love?
The longest-running puppet festival
The Puppeteer's Chrudim Festival, organized by the NIPOS association
And it is not just the longest-running in the Czech Republic - or Europe - it is the longest-running the world! It all started in 1951 with a meeting of amateur puppeteers. They decided to meet regularly and showcase the best non-professional productions of the year at an annual festival. Perhaps even more importantly, they also organize intensive seminars taught by professional puppeteers (many of whom teach with us). Their goal is to develop new talent and inspire each other. In recent years, more and more professional Czech companies have performed "insiprational" shows for the amateur puppeteers. The festival and seminars are focused on the local Czech community, but this year there is also a seminar in English for international participants.
The festival is organized by an association that is part of the Ministry of Culture to support amateur arts. They also supported our book, Puppet Technology, to promote the craft of puppetry among amateurs.
Small and Magical: Festivals in one of the most beautiful towns in the world
The Small Puppet Inventory (June) / Teatrum Kuks (August)
The magical, Baroque town of Kuks holds two summer festivals in a tiny 17th-century town that was built as a stunning Baroque spa and became a European centre of culture and art. The town now houses a museum and cultural centre, and in 2020, they opened a Gallery of Puppets in an old barn. Since then, they have started organising festivals, residencies and events in atmospheric historical locations.
They run the Small Puppet Inventory (Malá loutková inventura) in June and the Teatrum Kuks festival in August, featuring Baroque music, dance and theatre, as well as puppetry. Last year Puppets in Prague performed there. Their festivals usually showcase smaller companies that draws from the Czech puppetry tradition but is also taking the tradition in new directions. Many of the shows are developed by students or recent graduates from arts academies.
All about Circuses (and puppets)
Since 2012, we have performed at Prague's beloved Letni Letna New Circus and Theatre Festival, one of the most magical Czech events of the year. This 3-week international festival brings phenomenal shows, music, theatre and energy to the city. It is one of the largest festivals of its kind in Central Europe. Over 60,000 people attend each summer! The main focus is stunning thetare shows that incorporate contemporary circus. There is also an extensive theatre programme for children, with 5–7 shows a day, many of which are puppet shows. There are also workshops, open-air shows and free concerts, not to mention a fantastic atmosphere where you can enjoy great performances, eat great food, and meet just about everyone in Prague who loves the arts. We feel very, very lucky to get to be part of this festival.
The Forman Brothers' Arena Festival
Matej and Petr Forman (the sons of film director Milos Forman) are artists/puppeteers whose incredibly visual and even more incredibly imaginative projects redefine what I think of as puppetry. They organize an annual Arena Festival in Prague which, like Letni Letna, primarily showcases circus style shows. They also hold puppet shows for kids (many on their Boat of Mysteries, a barge that was turned into a puppet theatre). Matej Forman created a mask/puppet show, Circus Los Animales Fantásticos, with our good friend and PIP teacher Dora Bouzkova and her colleagues from the company Puppets Beyond Borders.
They have also brought the incredible Imaginarium Exhibition to Prague, one of the most magical places you can imagine!
What is a European Festival without puppetry?
One of the Czech Republic's most important theatre festivals is the European Regions Festival (Festival REGIONY) in Hradec Kralove. The festival presents over 300 performances in more than thirty venues in the historic city center. It is co-produced by the local Drak Theatre, which is also one of the renowned world puppet theatres, and perhaps it should come as no surprise that there are over 25 shows with puppets, including many that will be at the festivals listed above.
I am taking our students from our June workshop for a day, and we'll see 4 puppet shows.
Sounds about right for a Czech theatre festival.
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