Youth Theater, Novi Sad is the founder of the Novi Sad Theater Festival, the international theater festival for children and youth. The festival is held in the second week of May. The festival was founded in 2022 with the aim of marking 90 years since the founding of the Youth Theatre, symbolically in the year when Novi Sad held the title of European Capital of Culture. The format of The Novi Sad Theater Festival is competitive and the awards will be decided by an international expert jury.
The Youth Theater was founded in 1932 as the Puppet Theatre, at the Falcon Company (association of gymnasts) in Novi Sad. The theater was created from the Falcon section of puppeteers, which was formed in 1930. The Puppet Theater got its hall in 1936 with the construction of the "King Alexander I" Memorial Home, a magnificent and modern building designed by the distinguished architect Đorđe Tabaković. The hall had 166 seats and a new stage was built. He still works in that building today.
During World War II, the Theater did not work and suffered a lot of damage - puppets, scenography, costumes were destroyed or stolen. Under the name Vojvodina Puppet Theater, it started working immediately after the end of the war, but with great difficulties. This was followed by a name change to the City Puppet Theatre, then the Puppet Theatre, and in 1968 the theater received its current name - Youth Theatre. The Evening, later the Dramac Stage, started functioning in 1991. Since then, the Youth Theater has had two stages: the Children's Stage and the Drama Stage, and plays are performed in the Great and Small Halls. For more than nine decades of existence, more than 300 titles have been staged, more than 20,000 performances have been performed, and several million spectators have seen them.