Lobanov, Andrei Mikhailovich

Born July 28 (Aug. 10), 1900, in Moscow; died there Feb. 18, 1959. Soviet director; People’s Artist of the RSFSR (1947).

Lobanov graduated from the Second Studio of the Moscow Art Academic Theater; he acted with the V. F. Komissarzhevskaia Theater in Moscow in 1924–25. In the 1930’s and 1940’s he worked as a director at the R. N. Simonov Theater Studio, then as artistic supervisor of the Moscow Children’s Theater; he also staged performances at the Revoliutsiia and Satira theaters. He was chief director at the M. N. Ermolova Theater during 1944–58.

Lobanov’s first major directorial assignment was Ostrovskii’s Talents and Admirers at the Theater Studio in 1931. His productions of Gorky’s Summer People (1949) and Dostigaev and Others (1952) and Ostrovskii’s Easy Money (1945) at the Ermolova Theater and of Ostrovskii’s Even a Wise Man Stumbles (1958) at the Satira Theater were landmark achievements of Soviet theater. They combined precise genre detail with truly contemporary plot treatment and satiric, sometimes grotesque sharpness in conveying scenes of prerevolutionary Russia.

Lobanov devoted much attention to Soviet dramaturgy. One of his best productions was Arbuzov’s Tania (1939, Revoliutsiia Theater). Maliugin’s Old Friends (1946), Vershigora’s People With Clear Consciences, Panova and Dar’s Companions (both 1947), and Pavlenko’s Happiness were all devoted to the Great Patriotic War and the postwar period. In 1933, Lobanov began teaching at the State Institute of Dramatic Art, becoming a professor in 1948. He received the State Prize of the USSR in 1946 and was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor and various medals.