For the youngest viewers – a good old fairy tale

On the eve of the New Year and Christmas holidays, the Tereza Durova Theater prepared two premiere performances for younger and middle-aged audiences. On December 16, the premiere of the musical performance “Princess Nesmeyana” will take place on the big stage (the director of the performance is People’s Artist of the Russian Federation Teresa Durova). On the small stage on December 18 – the winter fairy tale “New Year on the Island of Penguins” directed by Olga Sidorkevich.

Princess Nesmeyana

This theatrical season at the Teresa Durova Theater is a complete immersion in the world of laughter and fun. The performance with Russian flavor and character “Princess Nesmeyana” will not only add to the collection of large-scale musical productions of the theater for family viewing, but will definitely become one of the most positive and life-affirming.

“I really wanted to hear simple children’s laughter in the hall, so the idea arose to stage “Princess Nesmeyana”. The performance is planned to have a lot of interactive, reprise, exits to the hall. The audience should feel like we just opened a bottle of champagne: bubbles, happiness, holiday atmosphere. We want to charge them with just such emotions,” says Tereza Durova.

A team worked on the play, which created musical performances beloved by the public – “Twelve Months”, “Flint”, “The Prince and the Pauper” and others. The new performance “Princess Nesmeyana” is an exciting musical journey. Before the premiere, composer Efrem Podgaits shared the story of the birth of his compositions:

“I really enjoy writing for children and adults who join them. Therefore, when I found out that the play “Princess Nesmeyana” was being prepared, my first theme was immediately born, before the meeting with Teresa Durova took place. I walked around Ladoga and hummed a tune from a future performance. In general, music for a family audience is more complicated than it seems. Children often like extreme things – either very funny or very sad. They can’t stand half-hearted solutions. I’ll tell you a secret, this applies to adults as well. So the music in the play “Princess Nesmeyana” will be bright, lively, sometimes cheerful, sometimes sad, but most importantly – not boring!

New Year’s Eve on Penguin Island

The performance about the adventures of three penguins on an ice floe was created for the smallest theatergoers, it is filled with game elements and interactive episodes. Despite the lightness of the form, there is a lot of painstaking acting work in the performance. The task of making the plastic embodiment of the images of penguins so that the action on the stage looked like a cartoon was solved by turning to hand-drawn animation. Puppet theater techniques and clownery organically entered the performance. The actors mastered the cascade technique, juggling, work with fitballs. In addition, Olga Sidorkevich introduces something completely new into each production – this time it is an acquaintance with the art of flairing (preparing cocktails using elements of juggling). The actors were taught by the three-time champion of Russia among bartenders Evgeny Rybalkin, aka NINJA MAN.

Most of the performances by Olga Sidorkevich from the repertoire of the Teresa Durova Theater are authorial, they include The Cardboard Man and the Moth, How Santa Claus Almost Overslept the New Year, Insects. Fantasy!”, “Transitional age”. They are distinguished by kindness, sensitivity, confidential conversation with the viewer and the ability to get to the most delicate strings of the soul. The play about penguins is no exception.

“Among the many New Year’s stories – both author’s and folk tales – I did not find one that would suit the genre I chose, so I came up with the plot myself. I wanted good lyrics, mischief.

STD laboratory “Rehearsal of the New Year” helped to take a broader look at the importance of the holiday and go beyond the standard forms of performances. After all, the New Year is not only a date on the calendar, but also a significant event in the history of mankind, it has many sacred meanings. It must be met with the right attitude so that the holiday becomes an impetus for the development of ideas and plans. This is a kind of psychological relief. And the very preparation for the holiday is very important.

She made penguins heroes – not only because children love them very much: penguins are in many ways similar to people – they are upright, they have such concepts as family, caring for each other, loyalty. Our penguins ended up on an iceberg broken off from the mainland. They are cut off from the family and their roots in the literal and figurative sense. This is where the story begins about how these touching creatures not only learn to survive, but also learn about the holiday. This fairy tale is about New Year’s miracles, and about overcoming fears, and about how to learn to enjoy and love life,” Olga Sidorkevich told about the appearance of the play, its meanings and features.

Nina DONSKIKH.

Photo by German Zhigunov, vertical photo by Alena Maryashina