On February 22, 23 and 24, 2019 the premiere of ‘Stalin. The Genesis’ by Valery Fokin will take place at the Main Stage of the Alexandrinsky Theatre.  

The years of Stalin’s power and his personality are among Russian history’s most tough, tragic and grievous issues, still breaking the Russian society up. However, every tragedy has its roots and that is what theatrical art seeks. ‘Stalin. The Genesis’ is a story of spiritual and moral transformation of young revolutionary Joseph Jughashvili into totalitarian ruler, a story of how human dies and tyrant is born.

Revolutionary show based on the play by Vsevolod Vishnevsky
Author of the performance — Viktor Ryzhakov. Play writer — Asya Voloshina. 

An Anxious Box Keeper’s Sketch-Book - one-man performance directed by the Distinguished Artist of the Russian Federation Igor Volkov is the second piece of the Monologues at the Tsar’s Lobby cycle opened by the Monologues performance (currently named Faces and Roles) directed by the Honoured Artist of the Russian Federation Nikolai Marton and based on pieces of the classic repertoire.

Valery Fokin’s performance, dedicated to the life of legendary Saint Blessed Xenia of Saint Petersburg, the patron of the ‘world’s most malicious city’, has become one of the most notable productions within both city’s theatrical environment and in director’s career since its premiere on February 27, 2009. 

The new production of the legendary performance brings together masters and young Alexandrinsky Theatre actors.

Chuk and Gek is the second performance directed by Patlasov at the New Stage. The first one is Noise based on a documentary play by Ekaterina Bondarenko.

The new performance by Patlasov is based on the Chuk and Gek novel by Arkady Gaidar, the writer’s diaries, and documented memories of those who have been prosecuted for political reasons and survived through Stalin’s camps. Those memories were documented by Andrei Sovlachkov and Alina Shklyarskaya, the playwrights of the project.

The performance is based on the novel of F.M. Dostoevsky - Crime and Punishment - the first work on the Stage of Alexandrinsky Theatre of one of the most prominent stage directors of the contemporary Eastern Europe, the artistic director of the Hungarian National Theatre, Attila Vidnyansky. 

In his interpretation of one of the most distinguished plays of the world repertoire, Nikolai Roshchin takes new scenic adaptation of the classical text, based on its contemporary direct translation. 
’Is such rigid Cyrano likely or wanted? How might the whole story have developed nowadays? This is what fascinates us in the new production of Rostand’s heroic comedy’.   

‘Demagogue’ by Hugo Erikssen (fresh graduate of Shchukin Theatre Institute and an apprentice of Rimas Tuminas) is a part of Alexandrinsky Theatre’s ‘Young directors premiere at the New Stage’ programme. A play of the same name by Kirill Fokin was an origin for the staging. 

Such an approach is perfectly fitting and justified in ‘Demagogue’: Hero’s rise and fall; fight for power and dominance, based on true historical events of Peloponnesian War; making the choice (or just an illusion of making) between democracy and dictatorship; an answer to the question ‘What rules today’s world: money or ideology?’

Nowadays only a few pieces are staged without Nikolai Marton who also cooperates with Saint-Petersburg State Capella – he participates In unique music-and-drama pieces. However, Nikolai Marton has not yet played many roles any artist dreams about playing.

One part of the Fairy Tale’s Birthday performance belongs to the action, i.e. quest genre, which is very popular now, and the other one – to the multimedia reading genre combining academic acting, classic Russian folk tales, the best pieces of Russian and world culture, as well as multimedia technologies.

Director Andrei Moguchy teamed up with Kostantin Filippov to create a modern fairy-tale based on the works of the Belgian playwright Maurice Maeterlinck.

Andrei Kalinin’s ‘How Blue It Is, The End of Alley…’ is based on the play by prominent painter, writer, theatre and film director Rezo Gabriadze, who is also the Art Director of the performance. This is Andrei Kalinin’s second production at the Alexandrinsky Theatre in Director’s chair: in 2017 he produced ‘The Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat’, which is now performed at the Small Stage.

Jean Bellorini is a French director and an Artistic Director of the Centre Dramatique National and Le Theatre Gerard Philipe de Saint-Denis. Among his productions are ‘The Karamazovs’ by F. Dostoevsky’s novel for Avignon Festival and F. Cavalli’s opera ‘Erismena’ for the festival in Aix-en-Provence. For his first production in Russia Bellorini chose a play ‘Krum’ by Hanoch Levin, a comedy ‘with two weddings and two funerals’ about a man in his forties who returns to his native country and his mother after years of wanderings — like a prodigal son. He is back to his little town, his friends and ex-girlfriend. His life is an infinite slumber. Krum puts his hope into ‘a moment to come’, a moment he finally becomes ready to start a life at full strength…

The performance by Beniamin Kots and his team was chosen from draft-projects of five ‘Laboratory 17’ finalists. ‘Laboratory 17’ is a competition for young directors, launched by the Alexandrinsky Theatre last summer. Theatre’s Principal Director Nikolai Roshchin mentors the competition. Its goal is to develop into a space for debate and communication between debuting directors and dramatists, who present unconventional productions of contemporary plays and stories.

The performance was the winner of the GOLDEN MASK Russian National Theatre Award in the Best Artist’s Work (Semyon Pastukh, Scenic Design) and Best Supporting Actor (Nikolai Marton as the Stranger) categories.

This large-scale project created by the Alexandrinsky Theatre Artistic Director, Valery Fokin, was the opening event at the 8th International Theatre Festival, which was also the year of Mikhail Lermontov’s 200th anniversary.

Theodoros Terzopoulos is a world-famous Greek-born theatre director, one of the leading European masters and an inventor of a unique acting method. His staging of Bertolt Brecht’s great play at Alexandrinsky Theatre’s Main Stage is the third appearance at our Theatre: the first was a premiere of Sophokles’ “Oedipus Rex” in 2006, which opened International Alexandrinsky Theatre Festival; second – a repertoire staging of ‘Endgame’ by Samuel Beckett’s play of the same name.

My Being an Actor is a one-man performance by the Honoured Artist of Russia Vladimir Lisetsky. It continues the Monologues at the Tsar’s Lobby cycle.

A FUTURIST OPERA IN FIVE SEASONS

This performance is set as a time-travel to the future after the collapse of the sun, to the obscure world with no light but only darkness around. This is a journey to the times of last men alive, who speak no language but a set of sounds and have no memory of their past. This is a plunge for thirty spectators into subjective reality with an assistance of unique musical and sound effects within an unusual set design.

Distant future, the year AD 4015, Earth calendar. As a result of a reincarnation experiment, three sisters – Masha, Irina and Olga, deceased in 1900, find a new life in the new world.

‘Schweik. The Comeback’is a new production by Alexandrinsky Theatre's Artistic Director Valery Fokin, based on a play by Tatiana Rakhmanova. The play, in turn, is inspired by Jaroslav Hasek’s world-popular satirical novel ‘The fateful adventures of the good soldier Schweik during the World War’.

‘Sunline’ is produced by novice and prospective director from Moscow Zhenya Berkovich at the Alexandrinsky Theatre’s New Stage. The production is based on Ivan Vyrypaev’s play of the same name. The plot spins around a dialogue between Barbara and Verner, who are married for seven years already. The author himself describes a play as ‘a comedy, which demonstrates the way of achieving a positive result’.

This performance for Alexandrinsky theatre’s Small Stage, based on a play by Peter Weiss, is directed by Andrei Kalinin, who also acts as scenic designer. The Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Company of Inmates of the Asylum under the Direction of Monsieur de Sade is the first Kalinin’s staging at Alexandrinsky Theatre. Composer Ivan Volkov is in charge of musical score. The public knows both him and Kalinin as members of Alexandrinsky Theatre’s Chief Director Nikolai Roshchin creative team.

By Nikolai Roshchin, based on a play by Vladimir Mayakovsky

This performance based on The Endgame play by Samuel Beckett, a classic author of the 20th century, is directed by the world-famous director Theodoros Terzopoulos, the founder and the head of Attis Theatre (Athens).

The Alexandrinsky Theatre presents a show for children aged 7 to 12 and their parents.

This is not Nikolai Roshchin’s first attempt to stage a play by Gozzi. Back in 2011 he staged The Raven at the A.R.T.O. theatre, turning down the festive design characteristic of commedia dell’arte purposefully. In 2001 Nikolai Roshchin put on the play The Stag King (Russian Academic Youth Theatre, Moscow, 2001) which was recognized as one of the best Gozzi’s performances on the Russian stage. This rendering brought the director the Smoktunovsky Award and the Moscow Critics’ Association Award.

The Sunstroke is Irina Keruchenko’s second work in the Alexandrinsky Theatre. In her new work, the director follows Bunin’s idea that love is the essence of earthly happiness and the short moment of ultimate concentration of a man’s life force that burns him up. She continues to explore the philosophy of the feeling.

...The performance is about creativity, it is about creating the relationships we want. We may call the Sun the Moon, yet it will still be the Sun. In other words, the what is more important than the how. The play teaches us that the true dreams of our heart may come true. That’s it. After all, like any other work of art, theatre is a dream…

Valery Fokin’s performance based upon the play by Leo Tolstoy called The Live Corpse continues the series of the director’s current research into the tragic relationship of a man and the soulless reality that drives the character to escaping from the real world.

Saint-Petersburg, i.e. Petrograd, is the main character of the performance. Director Anton Okoneshnikov, Scenic Designer Elena Zhukova, and Video Designer Maria Varakhalina have created the stage solution and visual environment for the performance. The audience find themselves amidst the happenings, and the situation develops around them.

Today. 2016 - ... is Valery Fokin’s first performance on the New Stage, so one of his goals was to make its unique high tech potential serve his artistic goals.

Willing to live is a one-man performance by the Honoured Artist of Russia, Sergey Parshin.

The new performance is Valery Fokin’s new rendition of the 2011 performance, which used to be given on the seventh tier of The Alexandrinsky Theatre Historical Stage.

This performance is based on one of the most popular works by F.M. Dostoyevsky – the Gambler.

Dostoyevsky is one of the authors that Valery Fokin’s artistic career is inextracibly connected to.