Tbilisi Russian Drama Theater

(full name, A. S. Griboedov Tbilisi Russian Drama Theater). The Tbilisi Russian Drama Theater, founded in 1932, traces its origins to the first Russian professional drama theater, which opened in Tbilisi in 1845. Among the actors and actresses who performed at the Russian theater were V. I. Nemirovich-Danchenko, A. I. Iuzhin, M. N. Ermolova, V. F. Komissarzhevskaia, and V. E. Meyer-hold. Performances by Russian troupes were given in various locations. In 1932 a troupe formed from among the performers of the acting group of the Tbilisi House of the Red Army staged Gorky’s The Lower Depths, directed by K. A. Mardzhanishvili. The theater was named in honor of A. S. Griboedov in 1934.

The theater devotes a great deal of attention to popularizing Georgian plays. It has staged Vakeli’s The Great Mouravi (1941), the play Khevisberi Gocha (1957), after Kazbegi’s work of the same name, Mrevlishvili’s Fiery Dreamer (1958), and Buachidze’s There Is a Ferocious Dog in the Yard (1963). Russian and Soviet plays presented at the theater have included Slavin’s The Intervention (1934), A. N. Ostrovskii’s Wolves and Sheep (1936), Simonov’s That’s How It Will Be (1945), Gorky’s Vassa Zheleznova (1949), Bulgakov’s Days of the Turbins (1954), and Shtein’s The Ocean (1963). The theater also staged Pogodin’s Man With a Gun (1938), The Kremlin Chimes (1940), and The Third Pathétique, with K. K. Miufke in the role of V. I. Lenin.

From 1933 to 1945, the Tbilisi Russian Drama Theater was headed by K. Ia. Shakh-Azizov. Among the artists who have worked at the theater are the directors A. I. Rubin, A. A. Takaishvili, A. I. Ginzburg, L. V. Varpakhovskii, S. F. Chelidze, G. Lordkipanidze, and G. A. Tovtsonogov and the actors and actresses E. A. Satina, A. I. Semenova, L. A. Vrublevskaia, N. F. Shelikhova, A. D. Smiranin, A. V. Zagorskii, K. K. Miufke, and M. M. Belousov. In 1971 the theater was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor. The present troupe includes People’s Artist of the USSR N. M. Burmistrova and People’s Artists of the Georgian SSR T. V. Belousova, V. N. Zakharova, I. I. Zlo-bina, M. Ia. Piasetskii, and N. S. Speranskaia. A. G. Tovstono-gov has been the principal director since 1974.