Alexander Shaps was a Soviet theatre director and actor, Honored Art Worker of the RSFSR, and Stalin Prize laureate. Born in 1911, he began his working life at the age of 15 in the Taganrog Theatre, and in 1930 he graduated from Russian Institute of Theatre Arts. He worked as an actor in the theatres of Taganrog and Tuapse, and from 1931 he transitioned to directing at the Central Theatre of the Red Army. During the Great Patriotic War, Alexander Shaps led front-line concert brigades, performing for the soldiers of the Red Army. From 1946, he worked as a director at the Moscow Academic Drama Theatre named after the Moscow Soviet. In addition to theatrical activities, he was the chief director of major mass cultural events. Among the performances directed by Alexander Shaps are "Courage", "Dawn over Moscow" (together with Yuri Zavadsky; for this performance the director was awarded the Stalin Prize of the second degree in 1951), "Vasily Terkin", and "The Wedding Ring". Alexander Shaps was also actively engaged in educational activities, lecturing on Soviet and foreign theatrical art for the All-Union Society "Znanie". The online collection of the Bakhrushin Theatre Museum holds archival materials related to the life and work of Alexander Shaps and his contribution to the development of Russian theatrical art.