Josef Skupa, Czech puppeteer

From Wikipedia:

Josef Skupa (16 January 1892 Austrian-Hungarian Empire  – 8 January 1957 Praha) was a Czech puppeteer. He also worked in the field of puppet theatre as a playwriter, director and stage designer.

He developed the most famous Czech puppets, Spejbl and Hurvínek, and founded the first Czech professional puppet theatre, the Spejbl and Hurvínek Theatre. 

In 1930, Skupa decided to leave his teaching job entirely and devote himself to his puppets professionally. He became the director of the Plzeň Theatre of Professor Josef Skupa, which initially had seven members.In addition to its permanent stage in Plzeň, the theatre toured throughout Czechoslovakia and visited abroad several times. In 1931, Josef Skupa was the screenwriter and director of the first sound film with the puppets Spejbl and Hurvínek.

In 1933, Skupa became president of the international puppeteer organization UNIMA, which he led until his death. The theater experienced several successful seasons, their scenes were released on gramophone records, they performed on the radio, and they were guests in Prague. With the advancement of fascism, censorship began to affect the plays. In programs for adults, the puppets became commentators on the unfavorable political situation.

Josef Skupa was arrested on January 17, 1944, for listening to foreign radio and sentenced to five years in prison in Dresden. The theater was closed shortly afterwards; some puppets were hidden, but some were confiscated by the Gestapo. To raise his spirits, Skupa often played Spejbl plays to his fellow prisoners from his cell. In February 1945, after an air raid on Dresden, the prison was destroyed; Skupa managed to escape and return to Pilsen. There, he feared being arrested again, so he turned himself in to the authorities, but he was not imprisoned again and lived to see the end of the war.

After the war Skupa moved his theatre from Plzeň to Praha. From 1948, the theatre performed not only in Czechoslovakia, but also abroad (in the United Kingdom, Poland, France, Hungary, Romania, Sweden and the Soviet Union), thanks to the new actor Miloš Kirschner, who knew foreign languages. Kirschner than took over the theater.

The boy Hurvínek was chosen to be sent to space . A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched from Florida on Wednesday, May 25 at around 8:35 p.m. CEST, also carrying the Czech satellite Planetum-1 into orbit. In addition to cameras, sensors and radios, it also includes a miniature glass puppet named Hurvínek.

  Statue of Spejbl and Hurvínek in Plzeň

Josef Skupa died a long time ago but his theatre and puppets continue to live. The performances of Spejbl and Hurvínek Theater in Praha are sold out .

The theater plays mostly for children but also they have performances for grown-ups.

Spejbl and Hurvínek undertook countless foreign tours around the world, first exhibiting in Baden-Baden (1928), then in Paris (1929), followed by tours to Europe (England, USSR, GDR, France, Belgium, Austria, Poland, Hungary, Sweden, Switzerland, Italy, Bulgaria, Romania) and later to distant countries such as Canada, USA, Egypt, Japan, China, Mexico, India, Jordan, Spain, Vietnam and others, with performances in dozens of languages

Spejbl and Hurvínek are greeting you,

together with me, 

                                      Margaret