Tashkent Drama Theater

(full name M. Gorky Tashkent Academic Drama Theater), a Russian-language theater founded in 1934. M. K. Vulkonskii, who helped found the theater, was its first director.

Works by Soviet playwrights have been most prominent in the theater’s repertory, including Romashov’s The Fighters (1935), Vishnevskii’s An Optimistic Tragedy (1939), Pogodin’s Man With a Gun (1940), Mayakovsky’s The Bedbug (1956), Arbuzov’s Irkutsk Story (1960), Maternal Field (1970, adapted from Aitmatov’s novella), and Roshchin’s Valentin and Valentina (1973).

The theater has also staged Russian classics, including L. N. Tolstoy’s The Power of Darkness, Gogol’s The Inspector-General, and Sukhovo-Kobylin’s The Lawsuit, as well as plays by Uzbek authors, including Kakhkhar’s Silk Siuzane and Shei-khzade’s Mirza Ulugbek. Outstanding productions of M. Gorky’s plays have been staged at the theater, among them The Lower Depths, Enemies, The Barbarians, and The Story of an Empty Soul, adapted from the novel The Life ofKlim Samgin.

Members of the theater’s company have included A. A. Gzovskaia, P. S. Davydov, A. S. Zagarov, E. L. Lenina, N. S. Firsov, and E. G. Iavorskii. The theater’s stage directors have included V. A. Chirkin, A. O. Ginzburg, and M. L. Spivak.

Among the company’s members in 1975 were People’s Artist of the USSR G. N. Zagurskaia and People’s Artists of the Uzbek SSR K. G. Efremova, M. R. Liubanskii, M. F. Mansurov, and N. G. Khachaturov. The principal director from 1968 to 1970 and since 1973 has been V. M. Strizhov. In 1936 the theater was given the name of M. Gorky, and in 1968, the title of academic theater.