The Train Theater

Theater

The Train Theater

The Train Theater is an artistic repertoire puppet theater for children, which promotes freedom of creation, innovation and excellence of professional artists. The theater is unique in the world of children’s theater in Israel and a leader in its field.
The theater was founded in Jerusalem in 1981, as a collaboration of four independent puppeteers:
Michael Schuster, Alina Ashbel, Hadass Ophrat and the late Mario Kotliar.
It started in a train car that was brought to Liberty Bell Park in Jerusalem. The train car transformed into a locomotive, a major driving creative force and hub of inspiration for puppet theater in Israel.
Productions are carefully selected by an artistic committee chaired by Dalia Yaffe-Maayan.
The theater’s repertoire expresses artistic languages in the reciprocal relations between content and style: Space, text, image, material, object, and puppet, all carefully tailored for viewers of various ages.
The shows are created through an intensive search for a personal style of expression, and aim to the highest level of performance and theatrical art.
The theater’s shows are performed in Jerusalem, all over Israel, and worldwide. They are highly recognized and often receive prizes in Israel and all over the world.
The theater promotes new and original creative work and encourages interdisciplinary artists to make artistic puppet theater for children also through its continuing education programs.
The theater is highly involved in the community and it appropriates a significant portion of its resources to community projects in the various types of populations as well as special education populations.
Every summer, the theater produces the International Festival of Puppet Theater which brings together puppeteers, viewers, artists and festival directors from Israel and around the world.