Theatrical Educational Institution

a school for the training of actors, directors, stage technicians, designers, scholars of the theater, and other theater workers.

In 1975 the USSR had ten higher theatrical educational institutions; the A. V. Lunacharskii State Institute of Theatrical Arts (founded in 1878 in Moscow); the I. K. Karpenko-Karyi Kiev Institute of Theatrical Arts (1918); the M. S. Shchepkin Moscow Theatrical School, attached to the Malyi Theater of the USSR (1809; a higher educational institution since 1943); the B. V. Shchukin Theatrical School, attached to the Evg. Vakhtangov Theater (1913; a higher educational institution since 1945); the V. I. Nemirovich-Danchenko School-Studio, attached to the Moscow Art Academic Theater of the USSR (1943); the Leningrad Institute of Theater, Music, and Cinematography (1918); the Sh. Rustaveli Georgian Theatrical Institute (1939, Tbilisi); the A. N. Ostrovskii Tashkent Theatrical Arts Institute (1945); the Byelorussian Theatrical Arts Institute (1945, Minsk); and the Yerevan Arts and Theatrical Institute (1944).

Actors, directors, screenwriters, cameramen, and other motion-picture and television workers are trained at the All-Union State Institute of Cinematography. There are theatrical departments in the arts institutes of Baku, Vladivostok, Voronezh, Dushanbe, Kishinev, Ufa, and Kharkov and at the conservatories of Alma-Ata, Vilnius, Riga, and Tallinn.

In 1975 there were more than 60 secondary educational institutions providing training for actors and other performing artists, including eight theatrical schools, in Gorky, Dnepropetrovsk, Irkutsk, Kazan, Novosibirsk, Saratov, Sverdlovsk, and Yaroslavl. The USSR has 18 choreographic schools, located in Moscow, Leningrad, Alma-Ata, Baku, Voronezh, Yerevan, Kiev, Minsk, Novosibirsk, Nukus, Perm’, Riga, Saratov, Tallinn, Tashkent, Tbilisi, Ulan-Ude, and Frunze. There are schools of circus and estrada (the variety stage) in Moscow, Kiev, and Tbilisi. Moscow and Odessa both have schools of theatrical arts and technical skills.

Major courses of study in theater are offered by the arts schools of Volgograd, Krasnoiarsk, Rostov-on-Don, Tiumen’, and Ufa. Such courses are also offered by 13 music schools, in Andizhan, Bukhara, Dushanbe, Kiev, Leningrad, Moscow, Namangan, Samarkand, Temirtau, Urgench, Fergana, Cheboksary, and Cheliabinsk, and 13 schools of art, in Alma-Ata, Ashkhabad, Kemerovo, Krasnoiarsk, Kuibyshev, Leningrad, Moscow, Orel, Rostov-on-Don, Riazan’, Stavropol’, Frunze, and Kharkov.

Certain theaters, for example, the Central Children’s Theater in Moscow, have studios to train their own actors; these studios do not issue diplomas.

During the 1974–75 academic year, there were 5,700 theater students enrolled in higher educational institutions and 8,900 in specialized secondary educational institutions.

Vocalists, instrumentalists, and conductors of opera theaters are trained in conservatories, while stage designers study in art institutions.