Demmeni, Evgenii

Born Feb. 28 (Mar. 12), 1898, in St. Petersburg; died Jan. 23, 1969, in Leningrad. Soviet Russian actor and director. Honored Artist of the RSFSR (1934).

Demmeni first performed as an amateur actor in 1918. In 1924 he organized and headed a puppet theater in Leningrad (originally under the Leningrad Young People’s Theater). In 1930 the theater merged with the Marionette Theater of L. V. Shaporina-Iakovleva and was named the Leningrad Puppet Theater under the direction of Evgenii Demmeni. There Demmeni performed as an actor and directed. He staged plays for children and adults and put on the first performances of plays for the puppet theater by S. la. Marshak and E. L. Shvarts. One of the founders of Soviet puppet theater, Demmeni was instrumental in raising the professional standards of this genre of theater art and in working out methodological problems of staging puppet shows. He was also a teacher. After 1929, Demmeni performed with puppets and on the estrada (variety stage). He was awarded two orders.