Spejbl and Hurvínek Theatre

At the start of his career, Josef Skupa worked in Loutkové divadlo Feriálních osad, a Plzeň-based amateur puppet theatre founded in 1913. This is where he first introduced his most notable puppets, the duo of Spejbl and Hurvínek. Spejbl, a disgruntled teacher barely able to keep up with his surroundings, was created in 1920, and Hurvínek, his sometimes lazy, sometimes hyperactive son, in 1926. Skupa subsequently performed with them in cabarets in western Bohemia.

Spejbl and Hurvínek Theatre operated as a touring company until 1943, and Skupa was arrested a year later for anti-Nazi activity during World War II. After his release and the end of the war, the company moved to Prague, where it remains to this day.

Following Skupa's death in 1957, Miloš Kirschner, who had joined the theatre in 1951 and alternated in the lead roles during Skupa's lifetime, became the theatre's director and main puppeteer. After Kirschner's death in 1996, his wife, Helena Štáchová, who had voiced the company's third character, Mánička, since 1969, and helped create the character of Ms. Kateřina, Mánička's grandmother, became the theatre's director. Spejbl and Hurvínek were taken over by Martin Klásek, who, having joined the theatre in 1973, had previously alternated for Kirschner. After Štáchová died in 2017, her and Kirschner's daughter Denisa Kirschnerová became the director.

While most of the theatre's productions are held in Czechia, the ensemble regularly embarks on foreign tours, and they have performed in numerous countries, always in that nation's language.