THE TWELVE MONTHS O DVANÁCTI MĚSÍČKÁCH
A winter fairy tale about courage, kindness
and a fire with the power to awaken spring.
“We are time; the grain ripens,
then comes the frost. We are time.”
The Twelve Months | Guardians of Time
About the production
The Twelve Months is a musical fairy tale inspired by Božena Němcová’s story about kindness, envy and the courage to hold on to hope even in the harshest winter.
Maruška is sent into the snow-covered forest to complete an impossible task. In the midst of a blizzard, however, she discovers the Twelve Months, gathered around a fire to guard the cycle of the year and able, for one brief moment, to turn winter frost into spring.
The production brings together the poetry of the Czech fairy-tale tradition, songs by Jaroslav Uhlíř and Zdeněk Svěrák, and an imaginative world in which a rural cottage opens onto the rocks of the Beroun forests, a snowstorm and the magic of time.
The world of the production
The fairy tale came to life before the eyes of a young reader — like a living book illustration in which a child’s room, a rural cottage, a snowy landscape and the circle of the Twelve Months merged into one ever-changing theatrical world.
Scenography
The stage was divided into three interconnected worlds. In the left portal, a little girl sat in her room reading a fairy tale that came to life before the audience’s eyes. The centre of the stage belonged to the village, the stepmother’s cottage and the cowshed, alive with the atmosphere of the countryside. The right side was dominated by monumental standing stones and a circle of fire, the realm of the Twelve Months.
The Twelve Months
Each month had its own colour identity, a wig inspired by its season and distinctive motifs from nature. Flowers, ears of grain, apples, leaves and frost shaped twelve individual figures wrapped in black cloaks, giving them a mysterious and timeless presence.
Magic
The transformations took place directly before the audience’s eyes. Smoke, sparks, lighting transitions and precisely timed effects created the illusion of real magic without sacrificing the production’s theatrical poetry.
Winter
Snow, several wind machines and a striking lighting design transformed the stage into a frozen landscape. The blizzard swept from the centre of the stage towards the Months’ standing stones, where the icy world met the warmth of fire.
Directing concept
The entire fairy tale unfolded as the memory of a child whose imagination opens while reading a book. The individual worlds flowed seamlessly into one another, the scenography transformed before the audience’s eyes, and every scene felt like a living illustration from a classic Czech fairy tale.
THE COMPANY
The people who opened the book and transformed its pages
into a living world of snow, fire, music and fairy-tale magic.
Creative Team
Behind the Stage
Cast
Jan Rudovský, Martin Pour,
Jakub Macík, Karel Dlouhý
Each of them brought a world of their own into the shared circle — and only together could they bring the fairy tale to life before the audience’s eyes.
Every story... begins again.
All it takes is opening the book once more.
And after every winter, the first violets will bloom again.
See you next spring.
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