A comprehensive history of Russian theatre, written by an international team of experts.

The play focuses on the lives of three sisters, Olga, Masha, and Irina, young women of the Russian gentry who try to fill their days in order to construct a life that feels meaningful while surrounded by an array of military men, servants, husbands, suitors, and lovers, all of whom constitute a distractions from the passage of time and from the sisters' desire to return to their beloved Moscow.

Moscow Art Theatre Letters tells the real story of the Moscow Art Theatre, from its origin at the turn of the century through its first forty years. Jean Benedetti presents the historical record first-hand in this collection of the letters of the main protagonists. Many are available in English for the first time--all will come as a revelation to Western readers.

This is the first book to explore the world of the theatre in Russia after Stalin. Through his work at the Moscow Art Theatre, Anatoly Smeliansky is in a key position to analyse contemporary events on the Russian stage and he combines this first-hand knowledge with valuable archival material, some published here for the first time, to tell a fascinating and important story. Smeliansky chronicles developments from 1953 and the rise of a new Soviet theatre, and moves through the next four decades, highlighting the social and political events which shaped Russian drama and performance. The book also focuses on major directors and practitioners, including Yury Lyubimov, Oleg Yefremov, and Lev Dodin, among others, and contains a chronology, glossary of names, and informative illustrations.

Many now consider Chekhov a playwright equal to Shakespeare. Senelick studies how his reputation evolved, and how the presentation of his plays varied and altered from their initial productions in Russia to recent postmodern deconstructions.