10 YEARS OF IN*DEPENDENCE

Ten years ago I quit my regular job to become a full-time theatre artist.
I thought I'd give it a year or two and see what would happen. Every project felt like it could be the last, so I treated it that way, putting everything I had into it. Somehow, ten years went by, and one “last” project followed another. Some were successful, some divided audiences, one almost broke me. This autumn, we are bringing a few of them back to Prague to celebrate a decade of making theatre in Prague’s independent scene. There is quite a lot to see, so come see us at Alfred in the Yard theatre! In the meantime, here is a short essay about the work, the life around it,
and everything in between.

The oldest work in the programme is Shadow Meadow (2017), our first project created specifically for Alfred in the Yard. We started working on it ten years ago, after being selected through the theatre's open call. The invitation to make a performance inside the theatre felt like a small breakthrough for us. Before that, we performed wherever we could: parking lots, housing estates, churches, even an ice hockey stadium… Found spaces have one obvious advantage: you don't have to spend anything on set design, and we didn't have any funding anyway.

When I say “we”, I mean producer and dramaturg Táňa Švehlová, myself, and the artists we invited to work with us on each project. For Shadow Meadow, we reconnected with the wonderfully eccentric Irina Andreeva, whom we had met through earlier projects, and began rehearsing in her crumbling studio in Bubeneč, Prague.

Back then, my artistic method was simply to put everything I loved on stage, and looking back, that approach still makes sense to me. Strobes, smoke, styrofoam, black metal, Irina… you can love all of that and still hold it together. We somehow made it to the premiere and waited for the response. It was mixed, to put it mildly. Most people didn't like it, but a small, loyal crowd gave us the impression that we weren't alone. 

The performance still carries a certain rawness and darkness, along with the energy we had at the time. We are bringing it back mainly because Irina passed away two years ago, and we want to make her present again through the performance itself and through a discussion titled after one of her last words I heard her say: “Why… why theatre?”

The following years were difficult, but at least I trusted what I was doing. So the next "last" project was Virtual Ritual (2019). After the shaky premiere at the Archa Theatre, the festival invitations started coming in. It soon became our most successful work so far, with 51 performances in more than 20 cities across Europe. We performed everywhere from underground events such as the Trať festival, held at an unused railway station, to the United Nations COP 17 Conference in Yerevan this October. This was the first time I felt that it was possible to speak to a broader audience through my “avant-garde” aesthetics. It gave me confidence and made me want to stay "independent" despite the uncertainty of it all.

By that point, some of my work, including several pieces that are not part of this retrospective, could be described as satirical or political. Then came the pandemic, followed by Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, just 1,400 km from our theatre. It was a brutal interruption of everything, and for a while I wasn't sure what kind of work I wanted to make. Out of that confusion came a performance with the most romantic title I've ever come up with: Landscape with a Pheasant, a Hare and a Doe (2022). Creating a work built around fragility seemed like a possible way out.

Meanwhile, despite everything happening around us, we had found a home stage. Alfred in the Yard gave us room to experiment further and try out silly ideas that sometimes led to unexpected results, but more often ended in catastrophe. Happy Hour (2023) is a good example. We had first experimented with low-frequency sound in Shadow Meadow, and ever since, the urge to push that idea to its limit kept returning. During one rehearsal, we built an architectural structure out of styrofoam blocks and brought it down using sub-bass frequencies. The effect was impressive, except that the low frequencies rattled the windows of the buildings surrounding Alfred. We were banned from using sub-bass speakers, but the styrofoam stayed. A lot of styrofoam.

This kind of trial and error, long rehearsals, endless changes - this was typical of my work. Wandervogel (2024) was a striking exception. It was one of the lucky ones: the project came together surprisingly easily, I met some wonderful people along the way, and for a while, making independent theatre felt unbearably light. Apparently, not everything has to be hard-earned.

The same cannot be said of my latest work, Ochlos Ochlos Ochlos (2025–26). While devising this piece, I thought I was going to lose my mind. Here is the thing: the success of Wandervogel meant more touring, less rehearsal time and, on top of that, some health problems. Together, they created a situation I failed to escape in time. We had to premiere the piece while it was still very much a work in progress. The energy was gone. So was my enthusiasm for making theatre. Luckily, that is not where the story ends. We have spent the last year trying to get the piece into the shape we want it to have. It might even become one of our best projects. A year after its premiere.

Being independent doesn't mean being alone. So this is the moment to say thank you to everyone we have depended on along the way:  Irina Andreeva, Tinka Avramova, Matouš Hekela, Sodja Zupanc Lotker, Adéla Vosičková, Ondřej Růžička, Arseniy Mikhailov, Matthias Hesselbacher, David Prokopič, Philipp Schenker, Halka Třešňáková, Olesya Sidorenko, Wayne Jordan, Václav Hruška, Osamu Okamura, Ondřej Pokorný, Ondřej Husar, Robin Seidl, Tomáš Janypka, Erika Čičmanová, Martin Vala, Matěj Šumbera, Václav Němec, Ellen Pávková, Jan Hofman, Lucia Škandíková, Ondřej Kyncl, Tomáš Procházka, Maria Cavina, Ewan McLaren, Ondřej Hrab, Mark Cornwall, Martin Špetlík, Bára Švehlová, Ladislav Švehla, Jan Mocek st.…

Program:

VIRTUAL RITUAL

November 6 + 7
Alfred in the Yard, Prague (CZ)

WANDERVOGEL

November 10 + 11
Alfred in the Yard, Prague (CZ)

HAPPY HOUR

November 13
Alfred in the Yard, Prague (CZ)

LANDSCAPE WITH PHEASANT, HARE AND DOE

November 21
Alfred in the Yard, Prague (CZ)


OCHLOS OCHLOS OCHLOS

November 26 + 27
Alfred in the Yard, Prague (CZ)

SHADOW MEADOW + TALK Why…Why theatre? 

November 29
Alfred in the Yard, Prague (CZ)

+ Talk TBC Declaration of Independence
A conversation about independent life in czech theatre