Directed by Piotr Fomenko Assistant director (teacher) Olga Firsova Cast: Pavel Sborshchikov (Zhigalov) Elena Nevezhina, Galina Kashkovskaya (Nastasia Timofeevna) Olga Levitina (Dashenka) Karen Badalov (Aplombov) Mikhail Krylov, Valus Tertelis (Revunov-Karaulov) Tomas Motskus (Niunin) Natalia Blagikh, Marina Glukhovskaya (Zmeyukina) Prijt Ruttas (Yat) Veniamin Skalnik (Dymba) and others..

Piotr Fomenko is one of Russia's leading theatre directors. His productions belong to the treasury of the national theatrical art. Since 1960, when he began his professional work as a director, he has produced over fifty performances in the theatres of Moscow, Leningrad (as it then was) Tbilisi and other cities. His work also includes a number of films and television dramas. In 1981 Fomenko began his parallel career as a teacher. Among his best-known productions are The Investigation by W.Weiss at the Taganka Theatre (1967), This Dear Old House by Arbuzov, La Guerre de Troie n'aura pas lieu by Jean Giraudoux at the Theatre of Comedy (1973), The Fruits of Enlightenment by Leo Tolstoy at the Mayakovsky Theatre (1985), The Case by Sukhovo-Kobylin at the Vakhtangov Theatre (1989), Albert Camus' Caligula at the Mossovet Theatre (1990), Guilty without Guilt by Ostrovsky at the Vakhtangov Theatre (1993), Crommelynck's The Magnificent Cuckold (1994), Tania-Tania by Mukhina with the Fomenko Theatre Workshop (1996), The Queen of Spades by Pushkin ( 1996), and The Wedding by Chekhov (1996). At present Piotr Fomenko is working in the "Workshop" on Chichikov. Dead Souls, vol 2, and on The Inspector-General (both by Gogol) with the Vakhtangov company.

The current performance of the Fomenko Workshop represents the second generation of its members. The first generation unites nine actors and four directors, who have chosen to work together. The direction is supervised by the teachers of Piotr Fomenko's class - Sergei Zhenovich and Eugeny Kamenkovich, recently joined by Ivan Popovsky. The Workshop was originally conceived as an experimental theatre, with a small company to be used by various directors to realise their respective projects and ideas, and with a view to revealing the actors' potential, experimenting with complicated spatial arrangement of the stage and trying out different styles of production and acting. Another important goal was to continue with and to improve the young actors' professional training. The Workshop has its 'strategic reserve' in the shape of Piotr Fomenko's graduate students at the State Institute of Theatre Arts. Its official birth date is August 1993, but in fact the Theatre Workshop is ten years old. The current repertory includes seven plays. The second generation of Fomenko's students have already put up a production of their own, Chekhov's The Wedding, directed by Fomenko himself. Formally, it is regarded as a production of the Fomenko Workshop.

Taganka Theatre 29, 30 March Zemlyanoy Val, 76/21

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