Soon after it was established in 1958, Divadlo Na zábradlí became a seedbed for Czech theatre of the absurd thanks to director Jan Grossman and dramatist Václav Havel. Several film directors of the Czech New Wave who were banned from making films during the normalization era found their creative home there, e.g. Evald Schorm. Behind the iconic era of the theatre in the 1990s stood its artistic director Petr Lébl.
Since the 2013/2014 season, the theatre has been led by Petr Štědroň, the former artistic director of Brno’s Reduta Theatre, who brought his creative team with him – dramaturge Dora Štědroňová, director Jan Mikulášek and stage designer Marek Cpin. Together they create the unique and characteristic poetics of the ensemble. They systematically reflect on burning topics which resound with society and at the same time examine the timeless phenomena of human life. They emphasize an irregular dramaturgy going in the direction of original authorial productions, dramatizations of novels and radical interpretations of classic as well as current dramas. Space is also given to prominent artists of the co-called Generation Y, such as Petr Erbes and Boris Jedinák with 8lidí ensemble, Anna Klimešová, Jan Frič, Anna Davidová or filmmakers Jan Prušinovský and Jiří Havelka.
The work of this theatre has been regularly featured at Flora. In 2015, the festival presented a cross-section of their work as part of the programme section “Profile: Divadlo Na zábradlí”, and then regularly hosted many of their notable productions, such as Hedonists, Hamlets, Obsession, Macbeth – Too Much Blood, Woodcutters, Personas, the diptych Zdeněk Adamec + Self-Accusation, and About Pavel (part of the autumn Epilogue of the 27th Flora).