Theater of the Nation opened the new season with the distribution of bricks

Over 400 artists work with the Theater of Nations, none of them on staff. This is the difference between the Theater of Nations and others – it does not have a permanent troupe and a full-time director. Therefore, the gathering of the troupe here takes place without a troupe, but all the main partners and sponsors appear on the stage. The Korsh Prize, which is awarded for the second time, will also have a corporate character this year. Just on the day of the ceremony, the artistic director of the theater Yevgeny Mironov gathered journalists to talk about plans for the new 17th season.

“Literally in an hour and a half there will be a ceremony of the Korsh Prize: you should have seen what is happening in our dressing rooms now!” Evgeny Mironov began the gathering without a troupe.

However, this time the Prize named after the founder of the Russian Drama Theatre, the successor of which was the Theater of Nations, will not even be shown online. So the public will not see the results of the efforts of the artists who in these minutes are making a marathon, and we will not be able to appreciate the fashionable outfits of the 11 nominees who will be presented with an award in the form of a brick.

– Prizes in the form of bricks are a symbol of the construction of the theatre. The theater unites us, no matter what, it lifts us up. So let’s be faithful to the theater, – said Yevgeny Mironov before moving on to plans for the year.

But before that, theater director Maria Revyakina reported on the past, 16th, season. Attendance (despite biting prices) is at its best – 100 thousand viewers per season. The theater halls were over 90% full. There were 8 new performances on the big stage and 5 on the small one. In total, 535 performances were played in a year.

– We will open the new 17th season with the premiere of the play “Hi, Sasha!” – the artistic director took the floor again.

In the performance of Marat Gatsalov “Sasha, hello!” based on the novel of the same name by Dmitry Danilov, who became the winner of the national competition “Book of the Year”, the main roles will be played by Igor Gordin (series “Patient Zero”, “Kept Women”, “Good Man”) and Natalia Vdovina (film “Nika”, series “Silver Wolf” , “Awakening”, “Passengers”). The action of the dystopia takes place in 2025. A pair of teachers of the philological faculty of Moscow State University, Svetlana and Sergey Frolov, are immersed in a family crisis that breaks against the backdrop of an existential crisis – Sergey is sentenced to capital punishment for having a relationship with a student. While awaiting execution, he lives in a special “factory”, where the sentence must be carried out by a machine gun named Sasha. However, the program on which he shoots is unknown to anyone.

The next premiere will take place in October – it will be a production of “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf” directed by Daril Chashchin. Yevgeny Mironov also plays in the three-time Pulitzer Prize-winning play based on the play by Edward Albee.

The premiere will take place on the main stage. The premiere of a new play by Yuri Butusov “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead” based on the play by the English playwright Tom Stoppard will also take place there. Yevgeny Mironov said that the program of the season had to be heavily redrawn, because many contemporary foreign authors were denied the right to stage their works. However, it was possible to agree with Stoppard. “The playwright was sympathetic and gave us rights,” Mironov noted.

– The key word for us this season is interfaith – the search for meanings, – said the artistic director of the Theater of Nations. – We dedicate a new space to the search for young directors. We chose three – Elizaveta Bondar “The Conformists”, Artyom Terekhin “Lord of the Flies”, Murat Abulkatinov “An Ordinary Miracle”.

He added that the Theater of Nations plans to tour in 9 cities, as well as in Israel. They are going to finish the season with a big tour in St. Petersburg.