Lesia Ukrainka Kiev Theater

(Lesia Ukrainka Kiev Academic Russian Dramatic Theater of the Ukrainian SSR), a theater founded in 1926 from the former Second Lenin State Drama Theater of the Ukrainian SSR (which had in turn been founded, in 1919, from the Solovtsov Theater, organized in 1891). The theater has borne the name of Lesia Ukrainka since 1941. It opened on Oct. 15, 1926, with Romashov’s The End of Krivoryl’sk.

Outstanding actors who have worked with the Lesia Ukrainka Kiev Theater include M. F. Romanov, Iu. S. Lavrov, M. K. Vysotskii, L. I. Dobrzhanskaia, D. V. Zerkalova, E. V. Samoilov, V. I. Osvetsimskii, and M. P. Strelkova. The theater has been headed by P. A. Rudin (1926–28), V. B. Vil’ner (1928–31), V. A. Nelli (1931–34), L. M. Prozorovskii (1934–36), and B. I. Vershilov (1936–38). The actor and director K. P. Khokhlov had an important part in the theater’s development between 1938 and 1954.

The theater’s most outstanding productions have included Gorky’s Children of the Sun (1937), Ukrainka’s The Stone Master (1939), L. N. Tolstoy’s Living Corpse (1940; with M. F. Romanov as Protasov), A. N. Tolstoy’s The Road to Calvary (1947), Zapolska’s The Morals of Pani Dulska (1956), The Youth of Polia Vikhrova (1959); based on Leonov’s novel The Russian Forest), Polevoi’s On a Wild Shore (1965), Lavrenev’s The Breakup (1967), Ostrovskii’s Even a Wise Men Stumbles (1969), Truth! Nothing But the Truth! (1969; D. Al’), Ioseliani’s Until the Araba Overturns (1972).

Members of the theater’s troupe in 1972 included People’s Artist of the USSR V. N. Dobrovol’skii and People’s Artists of the Ukrainian SSR E. E. Opalova, A. G. Reshetnikov, A. N. Rogovtseva, N. N. Rushkovskii, A. M. Tarshin, and D. V. Fran’ko. The theater was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor in 1946. In 1966 it was awarded academic status.