The Chekhov Moscow Art Theater announced the program for celebrating the 125th anniversary of the theater

Konstantin Khabensky held a press conference at which he announced events dedicated to the 125th anniversary of the Moscow Art Theater. It will be celebrated at the end of October. Celebrations at the Chekhov Moscow Art Theater and the Gorky Moscow Art Theater are still held separately.

The theater began implementing its anniversary program last season, releasing the performances “Uncle Vanya”, “Love Story” and “The Third Bell, Gentlemen!” This season, too, the celebration will mainly be expressed in what the theater usually does – in the release of performances. But they will be dedicated to the history of the Moscow Art Theater. The premiere of the play “9th row, 10th, 11th place” directed by Denis Azarov is a documentary drama not only about the people who served in the Art Theater, but also about those who work in it now, and even about those who, in the words of the artistic director of the Moscow Art Theater , will come to the theater in the future. Another documentary play, “Curtain,” based on interviews with today’s theater workers, was also written for the anniversary of the Moscow Art Theater, and its premiere has already taken place at the beginning of the season.

In November, the theater will host the evening “My name won’t tell you anything…” from the “Reading Circle” series. Marina Brusnikina’s production is based on the book “Letters to the Art Theater,” which includes letters that came to the Moscow Art Theater in the first decades of its existence. In addition, it is planned to release a book dedicated to the anniversary.

For obvious reasons, the 125th anniversary differs from previous anniversaries that are within the memory of today’s theatergoers in the absence of an international component: before, the theater gathered foreign guests who analyzed the world-historical significance of the Art Theater’s experience. But what the current celebration has in common with the anniversaries of past decades is that the celebrations at the Chekhov Moscow Art Theater and the Gorky Moscow Art Theater will be held separately. Many remember how a quarter of a century ago, the theaters of Oleg Efremov and Tatyana Doronina celebrated the 100th anniversary of the Moscow Art Theater with a difference of one day – and from the lists of guests and congratulators, behind-the-scenes observers made far-reaching conclusions about the balance of power in the theater world.

Oleg Efremov has been gone for a long time, Tatyana Doronina is out of work, but two theaters, called Moscow Art Theatres, still celebrate their anniversary separately from each other. Earlier, the general director of the Gorky Moscow Art Theater, Vladimir Kekhman, announced that his theater would celebrate its 125th anniversary in December. According to him, he suggested that Konstantin Khabensky come up with something together, but nothing came of it. Therefore, in December, the Moscow Art Theater will organize its own gala concert, which may be directed by Vladimir Kekhman himself.

Esther Steinbock