Priit Põldroos

(stage name of Johannes Friedrich Põldroos). Born Jan. 11, 1902, in Riisipere; died July 28, 1968, in Tallinn. Soviet stage director, actor, and educator. Honored Art Worker of the Estonian SSR (1942).

Põldroos graduated from a drama school in Tallinn in 1924 and began his stage career in the Dramastudio theater. Between 1926 and 1940 he was artistic director of the Workers’ Theater, and in 1940 and 1941 of the Dramatic and Workers’ Theater in Tallinn. From 1942 to 1944 he was stage director and supervisor of actors’ groups of the Estonian SSR in Yaroslavl’ and from 1944 to 1949 director and artistic supervisor of the Estonian Dramatic Theater (now the V. Kingisepp Estonian Theater, Tallinn).

Põldroos’ productions included Wolf’s Potassium Cyanide (1931), Kitzberg’s Matchmaking (1932, 1936), M. Gorky’s Egor Bulychov and the Others (1933), Brecht’s Threepenny Opera (1937), Tammlaan’s House of Iron (1938), Lavrenev’s The Break (1940), and Leonov’s Invasion (1945). In his productions of Pogodin’s The Kremlin Chimes (1947) and Man With a Gun (1949) he played the role of V. I. Lenin.

From 1946 to 1950, Põldroos was a professor at the Estonian Theatrical Institute, and from 1951 to 1953 director of the Museum of Theater and Music. He was awarded the Order of the Badge of Honor.