Saint Petersburg

Bolshoi Drama Theatre

1918-1931

Over the years the theatre has had the following names: 1918–1931 – Bolshoi Drama Theatre 1932–1963 – Gorky Bolshoi Drama Theatre 1964–1991 – Gorky Academic Bolshoi Drama Theatre Since 1992 – Tovstonogov Academic Bolshoi Drama Theatre The Bolshoi Drama Theatre (BDT) was founded in 1918 on the initiative of the writer Maxim Gorky and Maria Andreyeva, an actress of the Moscow Art Theatre. Among the theatre’s key ideological inspirers were the artist Alexandre Benois and the actor Nikolai Monakhov. The theatre opened on February 15, 1919, with a production of Friedrich Schiller’s tragedy “Don Carlos”, directed by Andrey Lavrentyev (set design by Vladimir Shchuko, music by Boris Asafyev). The premiere took place in the Great Hall of the Petrograd Conservatory. In 1920, the BDT moved into the building of the former Suvorin Theatre on the Fontanka River embankment, where it remains to this day. During its formative years, the theatre established the foundations of its repertoire and artistic identity. Its founders envisioned it as a bastion of heroic drama in post-revolutionary Russia, encapsulated in Maxim Gorky’s famous slogan: “To a heroic people — a heroic theatre!” The poet Alexander Blok was appointed the BDT’s first artistic director. Over the years, the theatre was directed by Nikolay Arbatov, Andrey Lavrentyev, Nikolay Petrov, Konstantin Khokhlov, Pavel Weisbrem, and Konstantin Tverskoy. The Bolshoi Drama Theatre collaborated with artists Mstislav Dobuzhinsky, Vladimir Shchuko, Boris Kustodiev, Nikolay Akimov, Yury Annenkov, Valentina Khodasevich, and composers Boris Asafyev, Yuri Shaporin, Mikhail Kuzmin, Ivan Vyshnegradsky. The theatre repertoire featured a blend of world classics (William Shakespeare, Friedrich Schiller, Victor Hugo) and works by contemporary authors (Dmitry Merezhkovsky, Valery Bryusov, Yevgeny Zamyatin). The online collection of the Bakhrushin Theatre Museum includes sketches, posters, and playbills from the BDT’s early period.