Dear friends of puppet theatre,
dear audience,
On March 12, 2026, we will launch the 34th edition of the International Wels Puppet Theatre Festival. Once again, we have put a great deal of effort into designing the programme for you and have put together a high-calibre selection. Our aim is to bring you joy, to make you laugh, but also to give you food for thought. Or, as the protagonists of this year’s farewell production say: We want to warm your hearts …
Admittedly, the devilish ladies with arsonist ambitions in “Gottlieb! It’s Burning!” do not voice this invitation without a touch of sarcasm. For the very next sentence is: We want to set you ablaze! And they do not mean this merely metaphorically, nor do they mean only the hearts of the audience, but the entire hall, the theatre, the world …
Miniature theater performances
Lambe-lambe in the city center
Welser Strickclub (A)
Knitting with heart
The Life of a Puppeteer
Do you know the feeling? You're sitting with colleagues, with people who share the same professional experiences. You're chatting about the content of your daily work, exchanging anecdotes, and feeling comfortably at home in this shared world of experience. You talk—maybe even laugh—about stories and topics that everyone in this field has experienced and keeps encountering. For us puppeteers, there’s one question we've all been asked, whether we work in Austria or Germany: “You’re a puppeteer? Can you make a living from that?”
