Bolshoi Teatr Kukol (Bolshoi Doll Theatre)

Description:

• The theatre could not have started from more humble beginnings, when three actors, one artist and one musician got together in 1931. On the 16th of May that year they began work, and before the end of that same year they were granted the status of 'Second State Doll Theatre.' Professionalism arrived in 1932 with the arrival of Savelyi Shapiro as new director. He had been a student of Mayerhold and brought with him much that he had learned from the Master. In 1957 the theatre performed the prose of Ilf and Petrov, Twelve Chairs and Golden Calf, the first time this had been done on a Dolls stage in Russia, and this was rewarded in 1958 with a bronze medal at the Brussels Exhibition. The most successful period in the theatre's history relates to the period 1964-1986 when the director was Viktor Sudorushkin. The theater travelled to the International Festival Golden Dolphin in Belgium, where it won the 1975 First Premium and Gold medals. By then the theatre was catering for adults too in its performances, though since Alla Polukhina took over as director in 1993 she has created a new repertoire. She was a student of Tostonovov and leaned towards Classic theatre - towards the end the repertoire contained sixteen plays for children and only two for adults.
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