Sturdza-Bulandra, Lucia

Born Aug. 25, 1873, in Bucharest; died there Sept. 19, 1961. Rumanian actress and prominent theater figure. People’s Artist of the Socialist Republic of Rumania (1951).

Sturdza-Bulandra made her debut in 1898 at the National Theater in Bucharest. In 1914, together with T. Bulandra, she organized a theater group that later became a recognized dramatic company; she performed with this company and was also its manager and stage director. The company staged Rumanian plays and was the training ground for the best Rumanian actors. In 1941 the group disbanded, having no place to perform, and Sturdza-Bulandra joined the Municipal Theater in Bucharest, becoming its manager in 1947 (the theater was named after her in 1961). Her roles included the title roles in Schiller’s Maria Stuart and in Gorky’s Vassa Zheleznova and Dinescu in Lovinesch’s The Destroyed Citadel.

Sturdza-Bulandra was a professor at the Bucharest Conservatory from 1930 to 1961 and chairman of the Rumanian Association of Theater and Music Workers from 1957 to 1961. She was awarded the State Prize of the Socialist Republic of Rumania in 1952.