Puppeteer's Chrudim

Puppeteers' Chrudim, running since the early 1950s, is generally recognised as the oldest continuously operating amateur puppet theatre festival in the world, born from an idea raised at the Jiraskuv Hronov amateur theatre festival. It showcases the year's best productions from the Czech Republic's nonprofessional puppet theatres alongside touring international professional performances, sitting at the centre of a puppetry tradition recognised on UNESCO's Intangible Cultural Heritage list.

Puppeteers' Chrudim began in Chrudim in the early 1950s, and it is now generally recognised as the oldest continuously running festival of amateur puppet theatre anywhere in the world, a distinction that rests specifically on the amateur, non-professional character of its core programme.