In his own words, Josef Koudelka was not particularly interested in theatre in his youth. When he arrived in Prague from his Moravian village in the late 1950s, his focus was on his studies. His interests were airplanes, folk music, and photography, which he practiced as an amateur. A classmate recommended that he meet his uncle, who worked in the editorial staff of the magazine Divadlo (Theatre), then looking for a photographer. It was in this context that Josef Koudelka, soon to become an aeronautical engineer by profession, became a theatre photographer.In the 1960s, Prague theatres were one of the rare places in Soviet Czechoslovakia where relative freedom of expression continued. The playwright and essayist Vaclav Havel, future President of the Czech and Slovak Federal Republic (1989-1992) was particularly active there, notably at the Theatre on the Balustrade (Divadlo na za´bradli´). Known for its presentation of the Theatre of the Absurd, where directors such as Jan Grossman interpreted Ubu Roi, by Alfred Jarry (1964), Waiting for Godot, by Samuel Beckett, and Intermezzo by Jean Giraudoux. Following the Prague Spring (1968), these stages were forced to close, and their animators dissented or left the country.

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