Description of the attraction
The Lensovet St. Petersburg Academic Theater began its history on November 19, 1933 with the premiere of the play "Mad Money" based on the play by AN Ostrovsky, which took place on Nevsky Prospekt in the house of the former Dutch Church. The theater was named New. Since it arose as a kind of discharge of the creative energy of artists under the leadership of the director Isaac Kroll, who was a student of V. E. Meyerhold. The first success of the performances of the New Theater, in which Ksenia Kurakina, Mikhail Rozanov, Roman Rubinstein, Alexander Zhukov participated, did not go unnoticed. Prominent Leningrad theatrical figures assisted promising actors in changing the stage. In 1936 the theater began its work in the Theater Hall of A. I. Pavlova on Troitskaya Street (today Rubinstein Street, 13), specially reconstructed for him.
In the wake of the struggle against "Meyerholdism" and formalism, I. Kroll was fired from the theater, the New Theater was headed by B. M. Sushkevich, an outstanding director, artist and teacher. He came to the theater with a group of his students. Being a pupil of K. S. Stanislavsky and L. A. Sulerzhitsky, associate of M. A. Chekhov and E. B. Vakhtangov on the First Studio of the Moscow Art Theater, the new director instilled in the theater the Moscow Art Theater traditions. The performances of the new theater were distinguished by a subtle psychological study of the characters of the heroes and the culture of scenographic decisions. His wife and colleague, writer, director and actress Nadezhda Bromley worked next to the director.
The theater had a wide and varied repertoire, which made it possible to reveal the talents of wonderful actors. Alexandra Korvet, Vera Budreiko, Alexandra Trishko, Cecilia Fain, Sabina Suikovskaya, Vladimir Taskin, Yuri Bublikov, Alexander Gyultsen and others have joined the theater troupe. Ilya Rakhlin and Arkady Raikin also managed to work here as dramatic artists.
The New Theater ended the pre-war period with a major performance, the premiere of which took place in 1940, which became one of the brightest theatrical legends, "Before Sunset" based on the drama by Hauptmann G. In it, Sushkevich himself played the role of Matthias Clausen. The play was performed in Leningrad only seven times. In 1940, the theater went on tour to the Far East, where it was caught by the war. In difficult field conditions, the theater troupe continued to work on new performances, which were mainly on a military theme.
The theater returned to Leningrad in the fall of 1945. The theater was located at 12 Vladimirsky prospect. Sushkevich died in 1946, but during his life he managed to bring many students to the New Theater, whose leader was the actress Galina Korotkevich. Despite the success of many performances, the troupe of the New Theater was in a fever, almost every season the main directors changed. The theater needed a new creative idea, and it appeared with the arrival of the famous director-paradoxist, artist, founder of the comedy theater, Nikolai Pavlovich Akimov. At this time, the New Theater received a new boost of energy. The combination of Akimov's unusual directorial and artistic vision by a theater troupe perfectly trained by Sushkevich gave interesting results. The first musical "Spring in Moscow" by V. Gusev appeared on the stage. Forgotten works of dramatic satire, such as "Delo" by A. V. Sukhovo-Kobylina, "Shadows" by M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin.
In 1960, I. P. Vladimirov, who became the true leader of the troupe. In a short time, Vladimirov managed to renew the troupe and give the theater a unique look. The Small Stage was specially opened for graduate students in 1974.
Since 1966, with the staging of The Threepenny Opera, a special synthetic genre began to form in the theater, consisting of eccentrics and grotesque, journalism and lyricism. On the stage of the theater at different times such directors as G. Oporkov, N. Reichstein, S. Spivak, A. Morozov, T. Kazakova, G. Trostyanetsky tried their hand. Such well-known actors as Georgy Zhzhenov, Mikhail Boyarsky, Irina Mazurkevich, Elena Solovey and many others played on this stage.
In 1996 V. B. Pazi, who preserved the traditions of the troupe and expanded its possibilities. For the productions, Pazi attracted the best Russian directors: Mikhail Bychkov, Gennady Trostyanetsky, Vasily Senin, Vladimir Petrov. Pazi invited director Yuri Butusov, a graduate of the Theater Academy, to join the troupe. Together with him came to the theater young artists who later became famous: K. Khabensky, M. Porechenkov, M. Trukhin, A. Zibrov. The theater's performances have become participants in prestigious foreign and Russian festivals. The theater has successfully toured across Russia, Germany, France, Italy, Sweden and other countries of the world.
After the death of V. Pazi in 2006, the theater again found itself in a difficult position. The audience success of the production of "Spanish Ballad" by L. Feuchtwanger allowed the Lensovet Theater to invite its director, G. Strelkov, to the post of chief director. Since February 2011, Yu. N. Butusov.
Despite the age deserved for the theater collective, the theater believes in its own strength, still hopes to remain interesting to the audience, to be full of ebullient creative energy, not to be afraid of searches and make discoveries.
