About the theatre
Brno City Theatre is one of the most progressive artistic institutions on the contemporary theatre scene in the Czech Republic, with a programme focusing on exclusive drama and musical theatre productions.
Musicals, drama and concerts
Brno City Theatre is located at Lidická 16, where it has two theatre stages – the Music Theatre and the Drama Theatre.
The Music Theatre was built as the technically most advanced theatre in Europe and continues to maintain high modern standards and technical facilities which it continuously expands with the addition of the latest state-of-the-art equipment. Contemporary musicals from around the world and original musical productions, as well as large-scale drama productions and concerts, are presented in this superbly designed modern musical auditorium.
The Drama Theatre is an auditorium with a rich tradition and history. It focuses on the production of classical dramas, popular contemporary plays, and comedies and chamber musicals that have become popular with the public. The Jef Kratochvil Gallery can be found on the first floor and is the venue for the opening of a new exhibition every month. Thanks to its location, these openings attract an unprecedented number of visitors. A photo gallery featuring the theatre’s actors and members of its production team can be seen on the ground floor, while the entrance to the building is lined with a Walk of Fame comprised of colourful tiles with the handprints of famous personalities from the theatre.
The theatre’s artistic ensemble is divided into three groups – drama, musical and singing. There is, however, an important specification at Brno City Theatre that, thanks to their versatile talents, all its leading members perform in productions taking in all of these groups, regardless of the range of genres represented by its productions. Its musical works are, what’s more, always accompanied by live music performed by the theatre’s large orchestra. Brno City Theatre brings together a constellation of outstanding artists, and evidence of their qualities is provided by, for example, the prestigious awards they receive from the trade critics and audiences, such as Thalia Awards, and their placement in polls on theatre portals in which Brno City Theatre and its actors regularly feature in leading positions in the popularity rankings. The ensemble is complemented by young external artists, in particular graduates of Brno Conservatory and Janáček Academy of Performing Arts, which gives the theatre a connection with the system of secondary and higher artistic education. All these facts go towards making up the basis for the unique possibilities open to the theatre in acquiring copyrights to the very latest new theatre productions from the West End and Broadway.
A diverse range of productions
Brno City Theatre is a repertory theatre that offers a diverse programme. It regularly brings its audiences completely new titles from foreign stages in Czech, European and even world premieres that open here very soon after their first performances abroad.
The theatre also provides opportunities for entirely original works by Czech authors, however, thereby providing continuous confirmation of one of the basic tenets of its work that was declared shortly after the Velvet Revolution, namely to offer all its stages as a space for the work of contemporary artists.
The Summer Stage at the Bishop’s Courtyard
In addition to two auditoriums at its bricks-and-mortar theatre, Brno City Theatre can also boast a summer stage in a quiet corner of Zelný Trh in the Bishop’s Courtyard of the Moravian Museum in the very centre of Brno beneath the open skies and the towers of the Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul, whose romantic atmosphere seems a perfect fit for the organisation of theatre performances.
Brno City Theatre brings plays from its regular repertoire to this wonderful space beneath the starry skies, but things sometimes go the opposite way, with works originally staged for the Bishop’s Courtyard receiving an appreciative response when they are later performed at the Music Theatre.
This magical and unique space is, however, widely used first and foremost as a platform for presenting original productions that are created specifically for it and that are usually connected with a momentous historical event or personality whose fate was linked with the City of Brno.
The repertoire is being gradually expanded every year and the length of the performance season being extended thanks to the favour these productions have found among audiences and tourists who specifically seek out open-air performances.
The magazine Dokořán and other theatre publications
The theatre is also engaged in successful activities in the area of promotion and subsequent documentation. Every month, Brno City Theatre publishes the magazine Dokořán (Open Wide) which draws the reader into the goings-on behind the scenes in the form of interviews, photographs and reviews. An annual evaluation of the work done over the course of the past season is offered by the spectacular theatre Yearbook, while our theatre calendar with photographs from performances is also in great demand, and other theatres have followed the lead set by our encyclopaedic and almost scientific programme brochures for individual productions that have received a great response from trade professionals and the general public alike. Exclusive large programmes full of unique photographs are also published to accompany major titles at our Music Theatre. The theatre also issues CDs of its musical productions.
Theatre festivals and guest appearances abroad
Brno City Theatre has played an active part in the festival Theatre World Brno for many years and also organises its own musical theatre festival known as Dokořán (Open Wide) which presents audiences with a cross-section of the most interesting things happening in the field of musical theatre on domestic and foreign stages. The selection is always supplemented by productions from its own repertoire and there is also an extensive “off-programme” in the form of concerts in the Theatre Courtyard and a final discussion with trade professionals at the Theatre Club. A traditional part of the festival is also a gala ceremony associated with the announcement of the results of the industry’s only awards for musicals in the Czech Republic in the poll held by the portal Musical-opereta.
In addition to festivals, Brno City Theatre not only appears regularly as a guest at theatres throughout the Czech Republic, but also successfully represents Czech theatre abroad and goes on tour throughout Europe. Brno City Theatre repeatedly returns with great success to, for example, the majestic amphitheatre on the shores of the picturesque lake Walensee in the town of Walenstadt in eastern Switzerland.
The School of Musical Theatre at Brno City Theatre
The School of Musical Theatre at Brno City Theatre builds on many years of systematic work with children in preparing drama and musical productions and the successful preparation of children for the musical Matilda.
It is not a school in the true sense of the word, it does not follow the Framework Curriculum for Primary Schools of the Arts in the Czech Republic, and the artistic education it provides takes the form of a course led by leading artists from the theatre.
Children aged between 8 and 13 divided into three age groups are acquainted with the basics of acting and singing, as well as various dance styles that are an integral part of musical theatre, in three classes held three times a week.
The teachers from the ranks of the performing artists at Brno City Theatre endeavour to offer the children, through the three artistic disciplines that comprise the pillars of musical theatre (acting, dancing and singing), their own personal and unique way of thinking about acting and singing interpretation, as well as various approaches to addressing acting challenges, so that the children learn to think, perceive and feel as actors, are capable of reflecting the inner experience of a dramatic situation truthfully through their body language, and can find and master their own unique and truthful means of expression on the stage.
In their singing training, the emphasis is placed primarily on the healthy and natural development of each child’s vocal apparatus and their engagement in a cross-section of the fundamental disciplines of the musical drama genre. Ways of thinking about song interpretation are offered, since in professional experience it is important that each interpreter finds their own unique approach themselves from the “instructions” provided. The children gain important skills for their further personal development through the most intimate contact with musical theatre.
At the School of Musical Theatre, children attend dress rehearsals for study purposes and are acquainted with the other artistic disciplines that go towards creating a musical production.
Each year ends with a final performance that is presented at Brno’s theatre festival Dokořán pro hudební divadlo (Open Wide for Musical Theatre).
Due to its extraordinary productions and its quality of interpretation, Brno City Theatre holds an entirely unique position among Brno’s theatres and all its activities provide repeated confirmation of the fact that it is rightly perceived as one of the most important theatres in this country and, indeed, the world, with which truly only a very few theatres around the globe can compare.
