Lviv Academic Regional Theater of Puppets

The building where the Lviv Puppet Theater is now located was built around 1914 as the Chamber of Crafts. From the very beginning, this place was intended for holding meetings of master craftsmen in Lviv and the region.

However, due to the unstable situation caused by the First World War and the financial crisis, many premises were rented for various needs. The Chamber of Crafts was no exception, and its large hall was rented by entrepreneur Marek Pariser in 1926. He turned it into a cinema "Stuka" with 290 seats for spectators, and later, in the interwar period, this hall was leased to the "Baltyk" Cinema. Over the years, the owners of the cinema have changed, but the hall has always functioned as a cinema.

Today, the theater retains fragments of authentic stained glass in the art nouveau style on the ceiling and incredible works of forged metal elements. Another stained glass window used to be behind the mirror. Thanks to these two stained glass windows, a lot of natural light entered the lobby of the hall.

The founder and first chief director of the Lviv Puppet Theater was Antonina Matskevich. She gained experience in the acting studio of Les Kurbas, an outstanding director and theoretician of Ukrainian theater. In 1940, together with her husband Serhii Steshenko, they founded the House of Folk Art, where they taught children and young people the art of acting. In 1945, together with a small troupe, they started the Lviv Puppet Theater. Initially, the theater consisted of only seven actors, as well as a carpenter, a sculptor, an artist, an accompanist and a seamstress.

The first performance of the "Caterpillar", directed by Antonina Matskevich, was shown by the theater on April 15, 1946. year It is interesting that Ms. Antonina had her own philosophy, which she hid from the Soviet authorities. Often, before the start of a performance on tour, the puppet King Danylo and his son Leo played an introduction, staging a dialogue. It is the image of the Lion King that is depicted on the logo of the theater, which during the Soviet period was called Ivasyk-Telesyk. A coat of arms with a trident was used, but sometimes it was required to draw a middle "tooth" as a sign of community with a trident. Today, the theater has more than 20 different plays in its repertoire. Since 2017, the theater has been actively developing various areas of activity and creating projects for both children and adults.