Czech puppeteer, director, and teacher. Markéta Schartová began her artistic career in 1954 as a puppeteer at the Středočeské loutkové divadlo (Central Bohemian Puppet Theatre) in Kladno. Her greatest success was her interpretation of Ygrain in Smrt Tintagilova (The Death of Tintagile, 1971) by Maurice Maeterlinck.

In the early 1950s, she turned to stage directing, always seeking new ways to express the complex structures of modern puppet theatre. From 1971 to 1991, she was hired by the Naivní divadlo Liberec (Naïve Theatre of Liberec). Her productions were characterized by great sensitivity as well as the introduction of unexpected situations that emphasized the close collaboration between the manipulator and his puppet. Alternating between the lyric, exaggerated comedy and lighthearted parody, she achieved remarkable results in the staging of Iva Peřinová’s dramas, Poslechněte, jak bývalo (Listen to What Used To Be, 1975) and Turandot ukrutnice (Turandot the Cruel, 1982). She followed these with her triumph, O věrném milování Aucassina a Nicoletty (About the Faithful Love of Aucassin and Nicolette, 1981).

Her work is aimed at young children as well as adults, exemplified by her adaptation of William Shakespeare’s Comedy of Errors (1984) and the Čapek brothers‘ Ze života hmyzu (Pictures from the Insects’ Life, 1989). Markéta Schartová has also worked with other puppet theatres such as the Divadlo Minor (Minor Theatre) of Prague. Since 1989, she teaches actors at the Department of the Alternative and Puppet Theatre (Katedra alternativního a loutkového divadla) of the Academy of Performing Arts (Divadelní fakulta Akademie múzických umění or DAMU) in Prague.

(See Czech Republic.)