Moscow Young People's Theater

Moscow Young People’s Theater

 

a theater founded in 1927 from a traveling theater company. In 1941 it merged with the State Central Young People’s Theater, which was founded in 1920. The theater’s repertoire consists chiefly of works by Soviet playwrights.

Among the theater’s productions have been The Wandering School (1935) and Brother of the Hero (1939), both based on works by Kassil’, Simukov’s My Native Land (1944), Aliger’s Tale of Truth (1946), Marshak’s Twelve Months (1947), Shvarts’s Little Red Riding Hood (1948) and Two Maples (1954), Geraskina’s The School-leaving Certificate (1949), Mikhalkov’s The Boastful Bunny (1951) and Dear Boy (1972), Shatrov’s In the Name of the Revolution (1957), Korostylev’s The Warsaw Alarm (1966), Aleksin’s My Brother Plays the Clarinet (1968), Kapler’s The Stormy Year (1970), and Lordkipanidze’s Me, Grandmother, Iliko, and Illarion (1973).

Noteworthy contributors to the success of the Moscow Young People’s Theater have been the stage directors G. I. Shagaev (manager of the theater 1928–40), P. V. Tsetnerovich, B. G. Golubovskii, and P. I. Khomskii, and the actors N. A. Derevitskii, M. P. Kolesnikov, L. V. Nevskaia, and Iu. B. Iul’skaia.

In 1974 the theater company included People’s Artist of the USSR L. N. Kniazeva, People’s Artists of the RSFSR V. K. Gorelov and V. V. Zubarev, and Honored Artists of the RSFSR G. L. Annapol’skii, L. M. Akhedzhakova, E. N. Vasil’ev, P. A. Gavrilov, V. I. Garin, and I. E. Real’. The theater’s chief set designer is Honored Art Worker of the RSFSR V. L. Ialalai. In 1970, Young People’s Theater was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor.

A. N. GOZENPUD