Divadlo Ungelt, Theatre in Old Town, Prague, Czech Republic
Divadlo Ungelt is a theatre in Prague's Old Town, set inside a converted medieval merchant courtyard just steps from the Old Town Square. The main hall is small, seating only a few dozen people, which puts the audience very close to the stage.
The Ungelt courtyard served for centuries as a customs yard where foreign merchants were required to store and trade their goods during the medieval period. After decades of neglect and a restoration effort in the later 20th century, it was turned into a theatre in the 1990s.
The theatre has no permanent ensemble, but Jana Štěpánková performed here for nine years, and her production Na útěku, premiered in 2009 with Zlata Adamovská, passed 400 performances. The stage also hosts the radio talk-show series Kdo židli má, bydlí! and Marta Kubišová's recital S nebývalou ochotou.
The theatre is at Malá Štupartská 1 in Prague 1 – Staré Město, inside the Ungelt complex. The auditorium seats just under a hundred spectators, and the Romanesque cellar foundations of the 11th-century merchant house are visible in the theatre club.
The name Ungelt comes from an old German word meaning tax or toll, a direct reference to the yard's original function as a place where duties were collected from merchants. Theatergoers today sit in a space that was once one of the most commercially active corners of medieval Prague.
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