Theatre on the Balustrade
The Theatre on the Balustrade is one of Prague’s most influential avant-garde venues, founded in 1958 and named after the street that leads from this square to the river. Its first production, a musical collage titled If a Thousand Clarinets, opened on 9 December 1958, signaling a new impulse in Czech theatre. The venue quickly became a hub for mime and drama, with Ladislav Fialka and his troupe joining three months after opening for the production Pantomime on the Balustrade, helping to establish the theatre’s distinct identity. In the early 1960s, under the arrival of director Jan Grossman, designer Libor Fára, and later Václav Havel, the Theatre on the Balustrade became a center of Czech absurd theatre, staging works like Havel’s The Garden Party and Memorandum, Jarry’s King Ubu, and Kafka’s Process. The political climate compelled changes: Grossman and Havel left in 1968 after the Warsaw Pact invasion. …
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