Since 2020, the Theatre World Brno Festival has supported the creation of new theatre projects through co-production funding. Through the professional meetings Independent Connections, organised in cooperation with the Nová síť platform, we have mapped opportunities for co-productions between publicly funded and independent theatre scenes.

Based on the findings, we issue the annual DSB Production Incubator open call, aiming to expand the map of the theatre world—not only in Brno—with projects whose themes, scale or specific form exceed the grant or institutional capacities available to artists and artistic groups. This call is primarily intended for established independent artistic groups or individuals with a stable creative and production team, access to rehearsal space and the ability to secure funding from multiple sources. Over five years, we have supported the following projects:

 

2026

Divadlo Mikro-teatro: Delicacy

Concept and direction: Veronika Poldauf Riedlbauchová
Set design: Kateřina Jirmanová
Music and sound design: Jan Čtvrtník
Production: Veronika Všianská, Tereza Sikorová
Dramaturgical collaboration: Miroslav Ondra
Cast: Tereza Sikorová, Michal Chovanec, Ondřej Klíč
A horror grotesque about an irresistible appetite. Dear guest, allow me to invite you to an extraordinary event that happens only once in a lifetime. And only for those who know that a true delicacy is not served on a silver platter, but in the space between dream and reality. A ceremonial table awaits you, laden with intoxicating flavours and aromas, where humour meets absurdity, nostalgia meets exaggeration, and poetic playfulness meets unsettling elegance. Delicacy is an invitation into a world where taste is more than merely a sense. With eternal respect—your host…

 

A studio Rubín: Beads Around the Throat

Author: Marcela Mikulášková
Direction and text adaptation: Eliška Balog
Dramaturgy: Lucie Ferenzová
Set and costume design: Matěj Trefný
Music: Martin Konvička
Cast: Tereza Jarčevská, Gabriela Mikulková, Štěpánka Todorová

Beads are something a person chooses to place upon themselves—with all their beauty and weight. Beads Around the Throat presents beads as a means of self-expression for the late Brno actress and poet Marcela Mikulášková. Her restrained yet remarkably precise spiritual lyricism portrays both the dynamic and extinguished relationship between human beings and God—between child and parent in the broadest sense. A production about searching for one’s place, marking time, and striving to find an anchor, only for that effort to end in a feeling of unattainability. It reflects the experience of contemporary women who objectively enjoy more equal and just conditions in society, yet whose position remains highly fragile and often depends on subjective factors such as their social and family background.

 

TMEL Collective: Flies

Concept: TMEL collective (J. Froněk, B. Doubková, A. Rašilovová)
Story and screenplay: Antonie Rašilovová
Direction and music: Jan Froněk
Set design: Berta Doubková

Everyone in the world has some kind of Problem. Human life is largely about solving problems. What is life with a Problem like? What happens after arguments?

In a world where every being has a Problem that they neglect, ignore, run away from or deny, things do not look good. A child encountering their Problem for the first time must first learn how to tame and accept it. And perhaps, in doing so, they can inspire the whole world around them.

 

Divadlo X10: Amadoka

Translation: Petr Ch. Kalina
Direction, stage adaptation and set design: Dušan D. Pařízek
Dramaturgy: Klára Metge, Ondřej Novotný
Costumes: Kamila Polívková
Costume and set design collaboration: Magdaléna Vrábová
Music and video: Peter Fasching
Cast: Táňa Malíková, Gabriela Míčová, Stanislav Majer, Václav Marhold, Martin Pechlát

The story of Romana, the story of Ulyana, the story of Sofia. Three women whose fates intersect, just as history and the present intersect, and just as the fate of Ukraine intersects with that of Europe. Romana tries to restore memory and identity to a disfigured, traumatised soldier returning from the fighting in Donbas. Ulyana and the Jewish boy Pinchas might be able to love one another—were they not in Galicia at the end of the 1930s. Through Sofia, we plunge even deeper into the past, into the period of the murderous famine and Stalinist persecution of Ukrainian dissidents. Ukraine as part of the USSR; Ukraine forging its national identity; Ukraine fighting for its secure place in Europe.

 

2025

Lithuanian National Drama Theatre: Quanta

Direction: Lukasz Twarkowski

Dramaturgy: Joanna Bednarczyk

Set design: Fabien Lédé

Costumes: Svenja Gassen

Video design: Jakub Lech

Music: Lubomir Grzelak

Lighting: Eugenijus Sabaliauskas

Choreography: Paweł Sakowicz

Assistant director: Bartė Liagaitė

Assistant costume designer: Pijus Dulskis

Assistant dramaturg: Simona Jurkuvénaitė

Production: Vidas Bizunevičius, Kamilė Žičkytė, Lukrecija Gužauskaitė

Cast: Marius Čižauskas, Algirdas Dainavičius, Airida Gintautaitė, Martynas Nedzinskas, Gediminas Rimeika, Rytis Saladžius, Rasa Samuolytė, Nelė Savičenko, Vainius Sodeika, Rimantė Valiukaitė, Arūnas Vozbutas, Aistė Zabotkaitė

The atmosphere of an interwar hotel high in the Swiss Alps. Suddenly, strange things begin to happen. From one day to the next, the fundamental physical properties of space and time cease to apply. The hotel guests are not spared the effects. All at once, things within them begin to transform: memories, attitudes, feelings, desires… No one understands what is happening—or why. Human life consists of quanta of events; they acquire meaning only through sequence—only through time and place can we perceive our stories as coherent destinies. But what happens when the fundamental quantities of existence stop playing by the rules? Hybrid theatre with no boundaries between its individual components.

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D´epoq: Mountains, Valleys, Episodes

Direction: Lucia Repašská

Educational collaboration: Matyáš Dlab

Costumes: Jan Matýsek

Cast: Zdeněk Polák, Janet Prokešová, Zuzana Smutková

A stage essay on guilt, grievance and shame.

What do we truly have control over in what happens to us? Is there even such a thing as the possibility of choosing? How much of our lives do we really hold in our own hands, and what is merely the consequence of free fall? Can one person belong (to) another person? Forever? Is it possible to own someone? Can a person voluntarily and permanently belong (to) someone and bind themselves for life? What is the value of commitment and the power of one’s word? And what effect does time have on the consistency of human decisions?

The theme of D’epog’s forthcoming stage work is a promise and the question of how long it can endure. Created for a trio of performers, the piece aims to explore the relationship between consistency and cowardice. The production examines the ethical boundaries between changeability and stubbornness.

The conceptual centre of the piece is the phenomenon of change. D’epog’s new ensemble work asks when leaving and releasing oneself from a commitment constitutes betrayal, and when it is a virtue. The production explores the weight of the moment in which what has already been said is denied. An important axis of the piece is the fluidity of one’s position. Using the framework of a classic love triangle and a host of archetypal relationship clichés, the production seeks to view the symptoms of moral promiscuity from the perspective of courage, strength and self-care. By exposing the tension between she and he, he and he, or she and she, the concept strives to loosen the bond between guilt and punishment, cause and effect.

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Studio Hrdinů: The World Around the Corner

Script and direction: Jiří Adámek Austerlitz

Dramaturgy: Zuzana Šklíbová

Set and costume design: Zuzana Sceranková

Set design and concept: Berta Doubková

Music: Ladislav Železný

Lighting design: Pavel Havrda

Movement collaboration: Petra Hauerová

Assistant director: Jan Hampl, Veronika Vítková

Cast: Berta Doubková, Kateřina Neznalová, Ondřej Bauer, Fedir Kis, Daniel Šváb

“You mostly just flounder around, and every now and then you catch a glimpse of how things really are.” — Being Ecological (Timothy Morton)
Groping in the dark, a sense of disorientation, the human being at the mercy of things, voices and gestures whose meaning escapes or constantly changes. The production addresses responsibility and vulnerability, (in)visible presence and mutual dependence, challenging our habitual understanding of individuality.

Director Jiří Adámek Austerlitz’s new original project is entitled The World Around the Corner. As in his previous production (Rolling Eyes, 2019), he is preparing his own script in close collaboration with dramaturg Zuzana Šklíbová and set designer Zuzana Sceranková. Together they explore personal freedom, guilt, and the acceptance that we cannot control the state of the world or our own future. How can we understand the world and our position within it today? How can we process and personally relate to all of today’s crises and the responses to them? How can we be part of a world that is burning, drying out, melting and flooding?

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Divadlo LETÍ: The Last One Turns Out the Light

Author: Antonie Rašilovová, Daniela Samsonová, Lenka Rollová, Ondřej Kulhavý, Štěpán Vranešic, Tomáš Ráliš

Direction: Ctibor Němec, Emma Žežulová, Jan Froněk

Dramaturgy: David Košťák

Set and costume design: Ester Hradilová, Jolana Šmejcová, Kristina Komárková

Cast: Alžběta Malá, Jakub Jelínek, Jiří Svoboda, Lucia Čižinská, Lucie Hrzalová, Martin Mlčouch, Milada Vyhnálková, Patrik Možíš, Petr Ťopek, Richard Fiala, Tomáš Adel, Zoja Oubramová

The end of the world can take a thousand forms. The Doomsday Clock shows 90 seconds to midnight. Time to start packing. But how can we prepare for the end when the tiny flame of hope has not quite gone out? Denial, restarting society, freeing the spirit from the body, searching for another planet—there are many strategies; which one should we choose? Are these shards of a shattering world, or merely little pieces of glass from moments of touch? An immersive production by the youngest generation of writers and directors, who have abandoned alarmist cries and are looking for ways to survive. The future may bring threats even greater than inclusive language.

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Divadlo Aldente, ME-SA / work in progress: (ID)ENTITY

Direction: Jitka Vrbková

Choreography: Martina Hajdyla Lacová

Music: Jan Kyncl, Martina Rousová

Cast: Martina Hajdyla Lacová, Martina Trusková, Martina Rousová, Jan Kyncl

Balancing on the boundary between (physical) theatre and ritual, and on the contrast between a dancer and a performer with Down syndrome. An experiment with the audience’s perception: at times the spectator is a voyeur, at other times the one being observed; at times themselves, at times someone else, and at times part of a whole, a single entity. Through play and imagery, the spectator discovers the tension between desired and actual identity, the identity of the body and the identity of the mind, one’s own identity and the identity assigned by society.

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Ufftenživot: Dad Can’t Take It Anymore!

Text and performance: Jiří Šimek
Dramaturgy: Sára Arnstein
Set and costume design: Vendula Tomšů & Jiří Šimek
Technical support and lighting design: Martin Hamouz
Producer: ufftenživot association

For children and their parents—a (fairy)tale about a father who has lost his nerve, patience, humour and perspective, and about his journey towards rediscovering himself. Every day is the same: the yoghurt was supposed to be strawberry, not blueberry; nobody is brushing their teeth; nobody wants to go to school… Shouting. Crying. Exhaustion. No one even knows exactly how long it has been going on. One “same” morning, something snaps and everything begins to fall apart. A puppet-and-object adventure. A nonlinear, imaginative and at times almost horrific journey of a father and son. A story as a bridge connecting the needs of both sides—the adult and the child.

2024

Divadlo X10: Philoctetes. Last Minute

Author: Ondřej Novotný

Direction and set design: Ondřej Štefaňák

Dramaturgy: Lenka Havlíková, Ondřej Novotný

Music: Kryštof Blabla

Costumes: Matilda Tlolková

 

“Ash and dust. Homeland. Spring flowers on native plains. Deceit. Psychopaths. State and family. Childbirth. Insurance. Crematorium. Heroes…”

The island of Lemnos is an exceptional experiential destination. Air conditioning, Sex on the Beach, All Inclusive. The once-famous hero Philoctetes has survived here for what feels like an eternity only thanks to his miraculous bow, with which he hunts game. Alone. The wound on his leg hurts, festers and stinks. It was because of this injury that his friends and fellow warriors, led by the cunning Odysseus, once abandoned him on the island while sailing to sack Troy. It was supposed to be a quick victory, but now they are dying one by one in a war that no one really wanted. They can win only with the help of Philoctetes and his miraculous weapon, so after ten years they return to Lemnos. An island full of fire and carcasses. Can the young hero Neoptolemus win Philoctetes over while preserving the moral integrity and values of his generation? Or will he merely accept the power strategies of the old patriarchal world? The fate of an entire civilisation rests in the hands of a mutilated madman.

This original Czech play by Divadlo X10’s resident author Ondřej Novotný is a confident reworking of Sophocles’ lesser-known tragedy. It presents a world afflicted by many kinds of crisis, culminating in a prolonged and debilitating war. Everyone longs for it to end and for normal life to return. But what form should that ending take, and what is or is not “normal”? The clash between pragmatism and idealism, and the conflict between a generation of naïve sons and famous fathers, emerge with urgent relevance. What if the fathers’ glory is a lie? Will our own solar panel and coconut sandals save us? What will happen when we leave Lemnos?

 

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Tygr v tísni: Oedipus Complete

Direction: Zuzana Burianová, Ivo Kristián Kubák, Václav Kuneš

Dramaturgy: Marie Nováková

Set design: Jana Hauskrechtová

Music: Ivan Acher

Choreography: Václav Kuneš

Queen Jocasta longs for a child. King Laius has secrets. The Thebans count the victims of the bloodthirsty Sphinx. Disaster is imminent.

King Oedipus has committed to transparent politics. Queen Jocasta wants to hear nothing about the past. The Thebans count the victims of the plague. Disaster is imminent.

Princess Antigone would like to know her father. The blind Oedipus does not want to be a burden. Thebes is calm. The calm before the storm.

How could they all have been so blind?

The trilogy comprises Laius, a play by contemporary author Hana Lehečková directed by Zuzana Burianová; Sophocles’ iconic tragedy Oedipus Rex (translated by Petr Borkovec and Matyáš Havrda), directed by Ivo Kristián Kubák; and The Abyss, a dance libretto by Marie Nováková and Václav Kuneš.

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The Droeshout Portrait: How Shakespeare Is Born x DSB 2024

Direction, puppets, music and supervision: Patrick Sims

Dramaturgical supervision: Barbara Gregorová

Educational supervision: Pavel Borák, Petra Vodičková, Michal Zetel

Co-production project manager: Martina Měšťanová

Lighting and sound: Petr Kholl

Production: Barbora Šíblová

Set design: Kristina Komárková, Marie Štěpánová, Emma Žežulová and the collective

Dramaturgy: Helena Gricová, Sára Matůšová, Barbora Šíblová, Emma Žežulová

Photography and video: Barbora Bachanová

Projections: Kristina Komárková

In the beginning there was the First Folio and a portrait. The Droeshout portrait. And then? The Shakespeare phenomenon. It is late at night. William Shakespeare dips his quill into ink and, by candlelight, begins to write another of his plays. Hamlet, perhaps? That must be more or less how it happened. Or not? Perhaps he was not sitting at a table, but by the Thames or in someone’s garden… And what if he was in Stratford the whole time and the works attributed to him were created by others? Edward de Vere, perhaps? The Queen? Or a swan?

Students of the Janáček Academy of Performing Arts, led by Patrick Sims, are creating a puppet production inspired by the greatest figure in world drama and his best-known likeness, whose ambiguity leaves room for our imagination.

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Gaisslers Hofcomoedianten:

Alchemists: Gold-Making Theatre Lab
Direction: Petr Hašek

Concept: Vojtěch Franců, Petr Hašek

Script and song lyrics: Vojtěch Franců

Research: Vojtěch Bartoš

Set design: Jitka Nejedlá, Jakub Šulík

Music and sound design: David Hlaváč

Choreography: Kamila Mottlová

Production: Natka Škvarová, Žaneta Špánková

Performers: Martin Bohadlo, Vojtěch Bartoš, Martin Holzknecht, Lucie Valenová, Michaela Váňová, Claudia Eftimiadisová, Vojtěch Franců, Aleš Pospíšil, Petr Šmíd, Bartoloměj Veselý

“It is true, without falsehood, certain and most true, that which is below is like that which is above, and that which is above is like that which is below, to accomplish the miracles of one thing.”
The Emerald Tablet

Turning metals into gold? More. Seeking immortality? More still. The philosopher’s stone? Far more! Alchemy is not just a few tricks and some hocus-pocus cabala. Certainly, there is always some crafty fraudster around, spoiling everyone else’s style. But true alchemists are scientists and artists, philosophers and mystics—and above all perfectionists yearning for perfection. The world as we know it is only a shadow of what it once was. And the world of tomorrow will not be even one hundredth of the reflection of what we have today. It was the alchemists who made the Discovery. A secret that was never meant to be spoken or seen by the world—but can they remain silent when they bear the weight of this world on their shoulders?
This immersive production for older and younger audiences alike allows you to look inside five alchemical laboratories founded by the Grand Master of the secret order himself (and the emperor, of course!), Rudolf II of Habsburg. And—if the signs are favourable—to give the world one more chance.

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Czech Television Documentary Jan Antonín Pitínský x DSB 2024: The Timelessness of Jan Antonín Pitínský

Searching for Jan Antonín Pitínský

Script and direction: Robin Kvapil

Dramaturgy: Hana Hložková, Kristýna Mazánková

Sound: František Šec

Editing: Zuzana Walter

Production manager: Kateřina Zavadilová

Director of photography: Tomáš Uhlík

Executive producer: Jiří Merunka

Creative producer: Ivo Kristián Kubák

Jan Antonín Pitínský, born Zdeněk Petrželka (*1955), is a poet, prose writer, playwright and theatre director. His work has received the Alfréd Radok Award (1995, 1996, 1998, 1999), the Award of the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic (2007), and the Zlín Region Pro Amicis Award (2023). After graduating from grammar school and the Secondary Library School in Brno, he held several jobs. From 1975 to 1980, he worked as a stage manager and occasional actor and scriptwriter at Brno’s Divadlo na provázku. In 1979, he began preparing a script based on the poetry of Russian poets entitled Lyrical Aggression, and a year later staged Homage to Dostoevsky on Česká Street in Brno. It all ended after ten minutes, when the participants were arrested by the police and taken in for questioning. After the interrogation, all performers were banned from working, so he left for three years for the foothills of the Jeseníky Mountains, where he worked outside the theatre. He later returned to Brno, where he and Petr Osolsobě began forming the amateur company Ochotnický kroužek, for which he wrote original plays and also directed. Because of the earlier ban, he adopted the pseudonym Jan Antonín Pitínský, which he still uses today. At the turn of the 1990s, Ochotnický kroužek became part of HaDivadlo, where Pitínský became a professional director. His directing career was long associated not only with HaDivadlo but also with Prague’s Divadlo Na zábradlí. He regularly directed drama and opera at national theatres in Prague, Brno and Bratislava, and was also a frequent guest at Slovácké divadlo, Městské divadlo Zlín, Dejvické divadlo, Divadlo Husa na provázku, Studio Marta and others. His directing work spans a wide range of themes and genres, from classical drama and contemporary plays to documentary theatre. It is characterised by a combination of stylised acting techniques with naturalism and powerful visual imagery. In 2019, he ended his directing career and has since devoted himself exclusively to literature.

 

2023

Divadlo X10: Exile x DSB 2023

Author: Lion Feuchtwanger

Translation: Valter Feldstein

Stage adaptation: Lenka Havlíková, Ondřej Novotný

Direction: Kamila Polívková

Dramaturgy: Ondřej Novotný

Dramaturgical collaboration: Lenka Havlíková

Set and costume design: Jana Hauskrechtová

Music: Ivan Acher

Graphic design: Terezie Chlíbcová

Photography: Patrik Borecký

Cast: Antonie Rašilovová, Lucie Roznětínská, Marie Švestková, Jan Bárta, Jan Grundman, Vojtěch Hrabák, Hynek Chmelař, Jan Jankovský, Ondřej Jiráček, Václav Marhold, Matěj Šíma

In his Waiting Room trilogy, Lion Feuchtwanger captured the rise of Nazism with extraordinary depth, while this almost documentary work reveals both the tendencies of the era and specific human motivations. Written between 1930 and 1940, the trilogy of novels ranks among the most powerful works of anti-fascist literature. Divadlo X10 presented the first part, Success, in October 2021. The second part, The Oppermanns (premiered in April 2022), takes place on the eve of Hitler’s rise to power and shortly afterwards, charting the first weeks and months of Nazi rule. The trilogy concludes with Exile, planned for 2023 and focusing on the fate of German émigrés in Paris. The planned presentation of the complete trilogy as a single whole will crown several years of work and mark ten years of Divadlo X10’s existence. Through this ambitious project, Divadlo X10 demonstrates the possibilities of large-scale drama with a strong theatrical and social statement in the independent theatre sector. The complete festival presentation of the trilogy was an exceptional undertaking within Theatre World Brno 2023, introducing Brno audiences not only to the work of Divadlo X10 but also to an ambitious theatrical trilogy addressing a highly sensitive and contemporary subject. “We all want the same thing: passports, work permits, money, a new home, a return to the old home. Liberated.” “I have nothing, nothing, nothing!” Lion Feuchtwanger set the final part of his loosely connected Waiting Room trilogy in Paris in 1935. A large and diverse German émigré community spends its time in political debates, obtaining the necessary permits, anti-Nazi journalism and petty personal disputes. Composer Sepp Trautwein devotes his creative energy to journalistic work in an attempt to secure his colleague’s release from Nazi captivity through international pressure. There is no time for music. Anna Trautwein’s life crumbles into a thousand small everyday obstacles, leaving her without the strength she needs to judge correctly whether “this transition into A-flat major really belongs to Sepp or whether it depends on Mahler.” There is no time for music. Their son Hans is learning Russian for reasons no one can quite understand and cannot comprehend why anyone would waste time on music at all. All the characters are trapped in a state of provisional existence. What remains is the struggle for lofty ideals and ordinary human dignity, for the right to work and to have a home—a struggle that seems futile in the face of the monstrous power of dictatorship, the bureaucracy of the host country and the exhaustion of life itself. And so circumstances kill love. Waiting Room is not only the title of the trilogy but also the title of Sepp Trautwein’s new symphony. Its space is filled with bustle, noise and commotion, fragments of everyday dialogue and broadcast speeches by statesmen, flowing freely from the intimate sphere to the public and back again. Its notes carry the sounds of every diverted, missed and delayed train, and the voices of the people waiting for them with their awkward bags and heavy suitcases, limp hair and expired documents. And also with the hope that one day the right train will arrive and carry those waiting to safety.

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Czech Television: Death to Theatre. Hubert Krejčí x DSB 2023

Direction: Robin Kvapil

Screenplay collaboration: Pavel Drábek and Tomáš Pavčík

Dramaturgy: Tomáš Pavčík

Performers: Miloš Štědroň, Jan Antonín Pitínský, Vladimír Morávek, Arnošt Goldflam, Vladimír Hulec, Martin Pšenička, Miroslav Krobot, Pavel Zedníček, Aleš Roleček, Jan Ferjenčík, Jan Špilar, Igor Dostálek, Tomáš Pavčík and Pavel Drábek

Playwright, director, mime, translator and specialist in the movement techniques of Asian theatre and pantomime Hubert Krejčí (1944–2022) studied drama directing at the Janáček Academy of Performing Arts in Brno (1969–1974) under Miloš Hynšt and Bořivoj Srba. His classmates included, among others, Nika Brettschneiderová, Bolek Polívka, Miroslav Donutil, Pavel Zedníček, Svatopluk Skopal and many other figures associated with the small-theatre movement of the 1970s and 1980s. From 1976, Krejčí led the Yorickova pantomima company in Pardubice and later in Prague. At the same time, he worked as a director and playwright with Brno’s Divadlo na provázku (Games and Little Sins, 1982) and HaDivadlo (The Schemes of Doctor Sakripanti, 1984). After November 1989, he collaborated with many other professional Czech and Moravian theatres, and especially with director Eva Tálská, Jan Antonín Pitínský and Vladimír Morávek, who also staged his dramatic texts. He was one of the founders of Brno’s Malé divadlo kjógenu, devoted to the interpretation of traditional Japanese farces. As a playwright, Krejčí created numerous plays, often inspired by absurd grotesque, folk and fairground theatre, commedia dell’arte and Asian theatre. Last but not least, his plays and writings offered an uncompromisingly critical commentary on the contemporary form of theatre and its creators. With the documentary Death to Theatre! A Portrait of Hubert Krejčí, we aim to follow up on last year’s successful co-production between Theatre World Brno and Czech Television, Deaths and Dreams of Eva Tálská: Portrait of a Theatre Poet.

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Divadlo Husa na provázku in co-production with DSB: Heroines

Authors: P. Dabravolskaja and others

Direction: Palina Dabravolskaja

Dramaturgy: Viktorie Knotková

Music: Jiří Hradil

Set and costume design: Jana Preková

Assistant director: Daniela Samsonová

Assistant dramaturg: Natallia Skarynka

Interpreter: Alena Rezvukhina

Cast: Růžena Dvořáková, Ivana Hloužková, Milan Holenda, Tereza Maxmilián Marečková, Tereza Volánková, Zdislava Začalová

Young Belarusian director Palina Dabravolskaja, together with musician Jiří Hradil (Tata Bojs, Lesní zvěř and others) and the Divadlo Husa na provázku ensemble, sets out in search of the heroines of everyday life. They lend their voices to women who overcome challenges without any prospect of reward or recognition: raising children, caring for households and patients, trying to find a place in a new country, or transcending the boundaries of roles assigned to women through their thought and actions. Whether in monologues that flow into songs or scenes bordering on a concert, contemporary forms of female heroism take centre stage. In the open-air atmosphere of the theatre courtyard, a strong dose of empowerment and inspiration awaits us—in the words of Czech-born Madeleine Albright: “It took me quite a long time to develop a voice, and now that I have it, I am not going to be silent!”

Palina Dabravolskaja (*1995) graduated from the Belarusian State Academy of Arts as an actress in 2017. After being forced to leave the country, she continued studying directing in Warsaw under Ivan Vyrypaev, the internationally acclaimed film and theatre director and playwright. Her first directing work, a production of the play The Room Is Dying by Belarusian playwright Mikita Ilyinchik, was ranked among the ten best Belarusian productions of 2019. She appeared at the Theatre World Brno 2022 festival with the musical drama Sarmatia, a story about the attempt to put down roots in a foreign country that combines folk music and hip-hop. The script was developed with the support of the DSB 2023 festival.

2021/2022

BuranTeatr: I AM NOT ALONE

Authors: Juraj Augustín, Petr Holík, Patrícia Pažická, Simona Vaškovičová

Performers: Petr Holík, Patrícia Pažická

A six-tonne stone in a square in the centre of Brno and two people. A man and a woman, though that probably does not matter. The site-specific project I AM NOT ALONE, a co-production of DSB and Brno’s BuranTeatr, is a study of two human beings living together in the context of a city. Is there conflict between them, or can they truly live in symbiosis? Do their individual desires clash with the environment in which they find themselves? Would they be happier if each of them were somewhere else? And does it matter at all? “One must imagine Sisyphus happy.” (Albert Camus) The production is part of the long-term project www.iamnormal.cz

The project was created in co-production with the Theatre World Brno Festival.

Divadlo LETÍ x DSB

Pub Quiz About the Future of the World

Authors: Marie Špalová and Martina Schlegelová

Dramaturgy: Marie Špalová

Direction: Martina Schlegelová

Set design: Jana Špalová

Music: Jan Čtvrtník

Cast: Marcela Holubcová, Milada Vyhnálková, Nataša Bednářová, Richard Fiala, Dan Kranich

“A scandalous show in which you will discover what awaits you, leave your environmental grief behind and finally start doing something!” Do you enjoy quizzes and care about the future of the world? Would you like to have a drink with friends at the theatre and enjoy a wonderful evening together? Then you cannot miss this event. The popular pub-quiz format is now coming alive in the theatre. Ideally, bring one to three friends and form a team. Buy your favourite alcoholic or non-alcoholic drink at the bar and start filling in our entertaining quiz. There will also be some theatre, witty hosts and a few magnificent songs. Do not worry—it is not graded! You will not have to say anything out loud, and no one will call on you. What is more, you will not leave depressed! We promise. How will we manage that? You will have to come and see. Divadlo LETÍ’s staged pub quiz, interwoven with live music, is open to teams and individuals alike and works against environmental grief (verified by nine out of ten test audience members).

The play was developed with the support of the Czech Literary Fund Foundation.

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Divadlo X10: Other People

Author: Tomáš Loužný, Ondřej Novotný

Dramaturgy: Ondřej Novotný

Direction: Tomáš Loužný

Set design: Petr Vítek

Music: Ivo Sedláček

Cast: Magdalena Kuntová, Lucie Roznětínská, Vojtěch Hrabák, Václav Marhold

Open Space is an original Czech play by director Tomáš Loužný and dramaturg Ondřej Novotný, prepared by Divadlo X10 in cooperation with DSB. It addresses the manipulation of facts and the problem of interpreting reality against the backdrop of climate catastrophe. The text is inspired by stories by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa, on which Akira Kurosawa based his famous film Rashomon. The atmosphere of impending doom also draws on Ganbare! Workshops of Death by Polish reporter Katarzyna Boni, which follows Japanese people seeking balance and existential certainty after the Fukushima nuclear disaster and devastating tsunamis. The basic situation is varied several times and interspersed with statements and testimonies that confirm, refute and view its essence from different angles. Does truth exist? How much time do we have left before the world irreversibly crosses a critical threshold? How do we react in crisis situations? Do we have the will to break free from post-truth chaos and the flood of disinformation? Is it acceptable to claim that reality is merely what we believe?

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Geisslers Hofcomoedianten

27: Jan Mydlář’s Execution Show
Authors: Luděk Horký, Natálie Preslová, Helena Koblischková

Direction: Petr Hašek

Dramaturgy: Helena Koblischková

Music: David Hlaváč

Choreography: Martin Talaga

Set design: Ján Tereba

Costume production: Kristýna Šrolová

Assistant director: Věra Halamásková

Production: Eliška Seveldová

Cast: Aleš Pospíšil, Martin Bohadlo, Petr Šmíd, Šimon Dohnálek, Vojtěch Bartoš, Martin Holzknecht and Lucie Valenová

An early-Baroque execution chamber of Czech politics. A morbid cabaret of national heroism in which master of ceremonies Jan Mydlář gives space to 27+1 original acts. From couplet to madrigal and from juggling to drama, all with faith as firm as a Marian column and love faithful unto death. Europe’s merriest dance of death, brought to you by Geisslers Hofcomoedianten. The performance is not suitable for spectators who suffer from anxiety in enclosed spaces. Once the performance has begun, it is not possible to leave the playing area. Strobe lighting is used.

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Divadlo Feste: Hilsner and the Others

Authors: Jiří Honzírek, Katarína K. Koišová

Direction: Jiří Honzírek

Expert consultant: Jan Prchal

Set and costume design: Sylva Marková

Production: Kristýna Břečková, Antonín Šmarda

Cast: Lina Nausedat, Anna Čonková, Tomáš Žilinský

It is well known that the future president Tomáš Masaryk became a nationally recognised figure through the court case of Leopold Hilsner. In a dispute in which public opinion condemned Hilsner for the alleged murders of two young women solely on the basis of his Jewishness, Masaryk began to be discussed as an ambitious and determined personality. What is less well known, however, is who Hilsner really was and how he became a scapegoat for society’s racist tendencies. It is also less well known that the Hilsner case bears a striking resemblance to several other cases that swept across Europe at the turn of the twentieth century. In addition to the specific case of the accused Hilsner, our production follows the universal, time- and place-independent tendency to condemn people solely on the basis of race or religion. Anežka Hrůzová is murdered in the Březinka woods near the town of Polná in the same brutal manner as the victims of Jack the Ripper in London eleven years earlier. Her throat is cut at the end of the Easter holidays—a season during which Jewish tradition includes the preparation of foods called matzo. According to a fabricated and false legend spread mainly by radical Catholics, these matzos were filled with the blood of Christian virgins. The dead Anežka Hrůzová thus plays the tragic role of a scapegoat in the repugnant theatre of Czech racism, nationalism and antisemitism. The Jewish Leopold Hilsner is unjustly sentenced to life imprisonment and spends eighteen years in a cell. It is shocking and shameful how dynamic and radical Czech racism was at the end of the nineteenth century. Leopold Hilsner could write only in German, like many other Jews of the time, and German therefore also plays an important role in our production.

The project was created in co-production with the Theatre World Brno Festival and Meeting Brno.

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Divadlo Toy Machine

David and Goliath
Script, direction, puppets, set design and music: Tomáš Běhal, Tomáš Podrazil, Pavel Heřman

Cast: Tomáš Běhal, Tomáš Podrazil

For children aged 3 and over.

Three stories about “giants.” Giants are not only enormous hulking figures who do not know where they are stepping; they can also be hidden inside the smallest person, in that person’s giant courage. That was also the case with Jack Bean. Something as small as a bean can defeat a dragon and possess the strength of a herd of oxen. Giant power can be hidden in the strength of a group, even when its members are the very smallest. Then all the strength of the giant Valibuk is of no use to him. He may defeat a bear, overpower a farmer and an ice giantess—but can he also cope with a swarm of bees? The third story convinces us that sometimes a giant is hidden inside us, ordinary people, and not only in fairy tales. As in the story of David and Goliath. From time to time, those who are smaller do not receive the recognition they deserve. Sometimes those who are big, with broad shoulders and large noses, stop seeing the little ones. David and others refused to accept that. Three fairy tales in one, about how different little people managed to defeat those far larger than themselves.

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Czech Television x DSB 2022

Deaths and Dreams of Eva Tálská: Portrait of a Theatre Poet
Script and direction: Robin Kvapil

Dramaturgy: David Drozd

Cinematography: Šimon Dvořáček

Editing: Zuzana Walter

Performers: Miloš Štědroň, Boleslav Polívka, Petr Oslzlý, Vladimír Hauser, Ivana Hloužková, Pavel Zatloukal, Boris Mysliveček, Gabriela Štefanová, Marie Jirásková and many others

Alice—Marketa Lazarová—Smrtolenka—Viktorka—Žofie… and many other female lives and destinies were brought to the Brno stage by director Eva Tálská (1944–2020). Her work was essentially connected with only two theatre companies: first Divadlo Husa na provázku, which she co-founded in 1968 with dramaturg Bořivoj Srba and directors Peter Scherhaufer and Zdeněk Pospíšil. In 1991, she founded Studio Dům, where she gave space to students and young amateurs, creating a kind of theatre school that influenced several generations of theatre-makers. Brno theatre audiences may still remember some of her productions, such as the trilogy based on nonsense literature—Gallows Songs, Alice Through the Looking-Glass and Tales of the Long Nose—Kleist’s Käthchen of Heilbronn performed as fairground theatre, the non-verbal production Circus, or Death and the Horse with Me, or The Comedy of the Passion and Glorious Resurrection of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To this day, every Christmas, Studio Dům performs a Nativity play inspired by folk Christmas dramas. In her work, Tálská developed a fascinating poetic theatre that transformed the face of Czech auteur theatre. Memories of colleagues, collaborators and friends; photographs; good and sometimes not very good video recordings; texts and more texts… That is all that remains of the theatrical work of an uncompromising, demanding and inspiring director. These materials are now becoming a documentary portrait of this exceptional figure.