Augsburger Puppenkiste
In 1953, it began producing television series and gained nationwide prominence with productions, such as Jim Knopf und Lukas der Lokomotivführer and Urmel aus dem Eis.
The figures, however, remained undamaged - luckily Walter Oehmichen took them home after performing for the kids of the stage members in the city theatre of Augsburg.
Despite all odds of the post-war period, the Oehmichen family was able to re-open the marionette theater as "Augsburger Puppenkiste" with the play Der gestiefelte Kater (Puss in Boots) on 26 February 1948 – exactly four years after the puppet shrine was destroyed.
He would soon become the staff writer for the Augsburger Puppenkiste and in 1951 he established the year-end puppet cabaret show for adults, which has since become a yearly tradition.
Klaus's brother Jürgen stepped into/entered the business at the beginning of the 1990s/ got involved in the Puppenkiste in the 1990s and helped his mother to produce the puppets.
Within the means of the reconstruction of the Heilig-Geist-Spital and plans for the park Kulturpark Rotes Tor further premises were provided by the city of Augsburg in 2000.
For the TV productions, special cover flaps were produced: they are smaller and modeled to fit the screen format with the aspect ratio 4:3.
Only the programs done entirely by the Puppenkiste, or those that were supposed to stand out from regular productions of the Hessischer Rundfunk (Hessian broadcasting), would do without the famous box tops with their high recognition value.
Worth mentioning are the numerous episodes for the German kids' program Sandmännchen (little sandman) (1962–1982), 'Die Museumsratten' (the museum rats) (1965–1972), 'Ich wünsch' mir was' (I'm wishing for something) (1968–1971), 'Wir Schildbürger' (1972), 'Natur und Technik' (nature and technology) (1972–1976) and Ralphi (2004–2006).
The most popular plays The Robber Hotzenplotz (1966) or The Little Witch (1971) – both created by Otfried Preußler – are put on stage unchanged since their first production.
While the small puppetry had to struggle hard with its first publications, it made its significant breakthrough with the staging of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince on February 26, 1951.
Also, Der Prozess um des Esels Schatten (The trial over the donkey’s shadow) from 1962 by Friedrich Dürrenmatt again and again appears in the program.
But the Puppenkiste does not only stage serious and funny plays and classics such as Dr. Johann Georg Faust; operas and other musical works, preferably from Mozart, are performed, too.
So he staged Peter and the Wolf by Sergei Prokofiev, a symphonic fairy-tale for children, as well as Bastien und Bastienne, a comic opera composed by Mozart.
As of 1953 the Augsburger Puppenkiste gained popularity throughout Germany: Only a few weeks after the premier of the Tagesschau, aired the first television programme showing the tale of Peter and the Wolf on 21 January.
However, after the relaunch HR offered the in-house writer Manfred Jenning to realize the concept of a series (Die Geschichte der Muminfamilie) and the Puppenkiste returned to its original station.
Other early productions of the Puppenkiste were "The little fat Knight" (Der kleine dicke Ritter, 1963), an adaptation of Robert Bolt's play The Thwarting of Baron Bolligrew , "Splashy the Squid" (1963), by whose careless behaviour nearly everything was destroyed, and "The Tomcat Mikesch" (1964, based on a book by Josef Lada).
The Puppenkiste was produced by Hessian television broadcaster Hessischer Rundfunk from 1954 until a dispute over the rights to DVD licensing ended the relationship after 40 years.
He also provided the source material for "Don Tin", "The Golden Squire" (1973), and the Wild West adventure "Lord Battershirt" (1978).
With the shows "Nature and Technology" and "Think and Thought" (1972–1976), he had also created and realised his own scientific magazine series for children in which the Puppenkiste puppets featured.
In 1997, a film based on the novel A Rat's Tale by the American children’s book author Tor Seidler brought the Augsburger Puppenkiste to the big screen.
In 2000/01 a new TV series was produced: Lilalu im Schepperland (a total of thirteen episodes) relates the adventures the princess of the fairy tale singing country Melodania, the court kitchen gnome Pimpernell and the crow Lukulla have to face while fighting the mighty witch Synkopia, the Red Goblin and other witches and wizards.
The script to the series, which is based on Enid Blyton’s “Book of Brownies”, was written by Peter Scheerbaum, the in-staff writer of the Augsburger Puppenkiste.
On New Year’s Eve 2005, a “best of” version of the current pantomime show was filmed on the stage of the Augsburger Puppenkiste theatre.
From April 2006 on, different songs from the cabaret are presented as a musical interlude on the TV channel BR-alpha under the title of “poetics of amazement”.
Since 2003 the puppet theatre has toured through German paediatric clinics, performing "The little kangaroo and the scaredy-hare" in hopes of encouraging sick children.
From April 29 to May 7, 2006 the play was also performed three times a day by the Puppenkiste in Augsburg's twin city Amagasaki in Japan.
By watching Peter Schneerbaum's play "Paula and the elfs from the box" children are supposed to learn how to deal with their emotions.
With a dance remix of the song "Eine Insel mit zwei Bergen" (EN: An island with two mountains) from the soundtrack of the film version of "Jim Knopf und Lukas der Lokomotivführer", the band Dolls United reached nationwide success in the music charts in German-speaking countries.
