The oldest and biggest puppet theater in Brno is coming all the way from the Czech Republic to Cedar Rapids! The famous Radost Puppet Theatre presents Buffalo Bill, a Czech perspective on the American dream and the Czech immigrants who longed for freedom, with sets and costumes inspired by old American Westerns.

Cowboys and cowgirls, sharpshooters, Indians or Cossacks… On that August day in 1906, the Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show received a grand applause, as well as at other stops throughout the Austro-Hungarian Empire. It is no wonder that one of the enthusiastic spectators succumbs to the lure of faraway places and adventures. Twelve-year-old Bořek runs away from home and secretly joins the remarkable company led by the Fanfaron principal. But the romantic dream is framed by a different historical context. The year is 1950 and Bořek, now an adult, runs away again. And this time not on a whim, but out of sheer necessity. In addition to the perhaps naïve love for western stories, from which the phenomenon of Czech tramping was born, another theme of the production is the nostalgic relationship of Czech society to the New World and the illusion of freedom, which America symbolized for many. After all, the issue of emigration – whether voluntary or forced by circumstances – connects the stories on stage with our reality today.