Shishigin, Firs Efimovich

Born Aug. 17 (30), 1908, in the village of Borok-Gorodok, Arkhangel’sk Oblast. Soviet stage director. People’s Artist of the USSR (1964). Member of the CPSU since 1940.

Shishigin graduated from the Leningrad Technicum of Theater Arts in 1929. From 1928 to 1933 he worked at the Theater of Classical Miniatures and the Theater of Working Youth (TRAM), and from 1933 to 1946 he was artistic director of theaters in Ussuriisk, Spassk, and Vladivostok. In 1946–47 he was principal stage director of the Stavropol’ Theater, and from 1947 to 1950 he worked at the Moscow Theater of Drama and Comedy. Shishigin was principal stage director of the Volgograd Theater from 1950 to 1956 and of the Voronezh Theater from 1956 to 1960. In 1960 he became artistic director and principal stage director of the F. G. Volkov Yaroslavl Theater.

Shishigin, a master of the epic, monumental panorama, has been attracted mainly to heroic and romantic drama and folk tragedy. He has devoted particular attention to detailed mass scenes and to the class-related psychology of his heroes. His best productions include a dramatization of Fadeev’s The Rout (1933), Kocherga’s The Watchmaker and the Hen (1935), Simo-nov’s A Lad From Our Town (1942), Gorky’s The Old Man (1946), Chepurin’s Conscience (1950), Gorky’s The Lower Depths (1952), Port Arthur by Stepanov and Popov (1954), Virineia by Seifullina and Pravdukhin (1957), Korablinova’s Aleksei Kol’tsov (1958), Pogodin’s Third Pathétique (1959), Gorky’s Children of the Sun (1962), Nazarov’s The Panfilovites (1965), Dangulov’s The Ambassador’s Diary (1970), Chepurin’s The Snows (1971), and Ankilov’s The Soldier’s Widow (1972).

Shishigin received the State Prize of the USSR in 1951 and the State Prize of the RSFSR in 1971. He has been awarded the Order of Lenin, the Order of the Red Banner of Labor, and various medals.