Leningrad Theater, Lensovet

(before 1953, the Novyi Theater), a theater that opened in 1933 with the production of Ostrovskii’s Mad Money.

I. M. Kroll’ headed the theater from 1933 to 1937. He was succeeded by B. M. Sushkevich (1938–46), a group of whose students also joined the theater. Among the best productions of the 1930’s and 1940’s were Rakhmanov’s Restless Old Age (1937), Schiller’s Maria Stuart (1938), and Hauptmann’s Before Sunset (1940; with B. M. Sushkevich in the role of Matthias Clausen). During the Great Patriotic War of 1941–45 the theater operated in the Far East and in the Urals.

In the postwar years the theater was headed by B. V. Zon (1947–49), S. A. Morshchikhin (1949–51), N. P. Akimov (1951–55), and others. Two plays staged by N. P. Akimov—Saltykov-Shchedrin’s Shadows (1953) and Sukhovo-Kobylin’s The Case (1955)—were important events in the life of the Soviet theater. Among the productions of the 1960’s and 1970’s have been Arbuzov’s Tania (1963), Pavlova’s Conscience (1964), Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet (1964), Brecht’s The Threepenny Opera (1966), Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew (1970), Cruelty based on Nilin’s novella, The Forty-first based on Lavrenev’s novella, and Dvoretskii’s Man From Outside (the last three were all produced in 1971).

The theater troupe (1973) includes People’s Artist of the RSFSR A. B. Freindlikh, Honored Artist of the RSFSR and the Estonian SSR M. K. Deviatkin, Honored Artist of the RSFSR O. Z. Kagan, and L. M. D’iachkov. In 1961, Honored Art Worker of the RSFSR I. P. Vladimirov became the theater’s principal stage director.