Rostov-on-Don Theater

(full name, M. Gorky Rostov-on-Don Theater). Founded in 1917, the theater was known as the A. V. Lunacharskii Theater from 1920 to 1935 and the M. Gorky Theater from 1936. Productions in the 1920’s included Vermishev’s The Red Truth (1920), Lunacharskii’s The Royal Barber (1920) and Poison (1925), Erdman’s The Warrant (1925), Seifullina and Pravdukhin’s Virineia (1926), and Tre-nev’s Liubov’ Iarovaia (1927). From 1936 to 1940 actors came mainly from the Theater-Studio Under the Direction of I. A. Zavadskii in Moscow. Zavadskii himself was the theater’s artistic director in these years and staged such plays as Shaw’s The Devil’s Disciple (1936), Griboedov’s Woe From Wit (1937), Po-godin’s Man With a Gun (1938), and Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew (1938).

The theater has also been headed by E. A. Brill’ (1940–42), I. S. Efremov (1943–44), G. E. Leondor (1945–18), L. S. Rudnik (1948–53), A. A. Nikitin (1954–58), E. M. Beibutov (1959–64), and M. M. Vakhovskii (1964–68). Productions have included The Young Guard, based on Fadeev’s work (1947), and The Kremlin Chimes by Pogodin (1945, 1954, with A. G. Shein in the role of V. I. Lenin). Virgin Soil Upturned (1963), The RegimentIs Coming (1967) and And Quiet Flows the Don (1975), all based on works by Sholokhov, Vishnevskii’s The First Cavalry Army (1969), Ankilov’s The Soldier’s Widow (1973), and Makaenok’s Pill Under the Tongue (1973) have also been staged.

In 1975 the theater’s company included People’s Artists of the RSFSR P. G. Loboda, M. I. Bushnov, and V. Z. Shatu-novskii and Honored Artists of the RSFSR K. A. Abashina, A. A. Krzhechkovskaia, E. A. Kuznetsova, E. Ia. Filippova, and A. M. Chuprunova. Since 1968 the principal stage director has been Ia. S. Tsitsinovskii, Honored Art Worker of the RSFSR and Honored Artist of the Armenian SSR.