Varpakhovskii, Leonid Viktorovich

Born Mar. 16 (29), 1908, in Moscow. Soviet director. People’s Artist of the RSFSR (1966) and Honored Art Worker of the Georgian SSR (1964).

Varpakhovskii graduated from the literature department of Moscow State University in 1931 and was a set and costume designer and assistant stage director at a Moscow theater of working youth. From 1933 through 1935 he was a research assistant at the Meierkhol’d Theater; in 1936-37, a director at the Alma-Ata Russian Theater; from 1953 through 1955, a director at the Griboedov Theater in Tbilisi; and in 1957, principal director of the Ermolova Theater in Moscow. In 1962 he became director at the Malyi Theater in Moscow and in 1970, at the Vakhtangov Theater. Varpakhovskii has staged Vishnevskii’s Optimistic Tragedy in Alma-Ata in 1937, at the Franko Theater in Kiev in 1961, and at the Malyi Theater in 1967; Davurin’s Transport Train of the Second Class at the Ermolova Theater in Moscow in 1957; Lermontov’s Masquerade (1962), De Filippo’s Christmas at the Cupiello House (1965), Aleshin’s The Ward (1962) and The Diplomat (1967), and A. N. Ostrovskii’s Easy Money (1969) all at the Malyi Theater; and Shatrov’s The Sixth of July at the Moscow Art Theater in 1966.