The Drama Theater of Nizhny Novgorod named after M. Gorky is one of the oldest theaters in the country. It exists more than 200 years.
The Drama Theater in Nizhny Novgorod began itsexistence in 1798. Its founder was Prince NG. Shakhovsky. It was a serf theater and all the actors came from serfs. Performances were demonstrated in one of the houses of the prince, which was located at the corner of the streets of Bolshaya Pechorskaya and Malaya Pecherskaya. The house was rebuilt for a theater, there was a parterre designed for a hundred spectators, a gallery for two hundred spectators, boxes for 27 and 50 seats. The building was gloomy and dilapidated. The boxes looked more like stalls. On the curtain were huge holes, in which periodically protruded someone's nose, peeped out someone's eyes, sticking out his head. From the day of its foundation until 1824, the theater was called the Nizhny Novgorod City and Fairy Theater of Prince Shakhovsky. There were tragedies, comedies, ballets and operas in the repertoire. Since 1824, the name has changed, henceforth it was the Nizhny Novgorod Theater, and from 1896 - the Nikolaev Drama Theater (Nizhny Novgorod). History its existence in different periods evolved differently.
The years from 1824 to 1896 were for the theater heavy.After the death of Prince Shakhovsky, his heirs sold the theater together with all the actors to two rich theatergoers, but in 10 years the hosts changed again. This could not but affect the quality of the productions. Frequent change of entrepreneurs led to the fact that the performances became less interesting, the actors began to play worse, the revenues decreased, while the building and the troupe had to be maintained, which led to losses. In 1853 the building of the theater burned down. The year of revival can be considered 1855. Then, at the request of the governor, the theater was reopened, but already in the house owned by P.E. To Bugrov. During the period from 1863 to 1894 the building survived several fires. The City Duma was seeking funds for its restoration, but N. Bugrov, its owner, did not want his theater to be located in his grandfather's house again. He allocated 200 thousand rubles for the construction of a new building. The city added to this amount 50 thousand, the government provided a subsidy and in 2 years a new theater building was built on Bolshaya Pokrovskaya, where it is located to this day. The opening took place in 1896, the premiere of the opera was M.I. Glinka "Life for the Tsar", in which the young and unknown F. Chaliapin sang. In different years on the stage of the Nizhny Novgorod theater such great actors and actresses as Stanislavsky, VF started their career. Komissarzhevskaya, M.N. Ermolova, M.S. Shchepkin and others.
In the 20th century Drama Theater (Nizhny Novgorod)repeatedly changed names. In 1918 it was called Soviet, in 1923 - the First State, from 1932 - the First Gorky (after renaming the city to Gorky), it was also the State, regional, and regional. The name that he has now, he received in 1990 - the Nizhny Novgorod State Order of the Red Banner of Labor Academic Drama Theater named after M. Gorky. During the period from 1928 to 1945, 191 new plays appeared in the repertoire. Among them were performances of classical works, plays by foreign authors of the time, but the overwhelming majority belonged to Soviet authors. The Drama Theater (Nizhny Novgorod) has repeatedly received awards and main prizes at theater festivals for its productions.
Now the director is B.Kainov (Honored Worker of Culture of Russia), artistic director - G. Demurov (People's Artist of Russia). Since 2006, the Drama Theater (Nizhny Novgorod) has resumed touring Russia. In addition, he takes an active part in theater festivals (in Russian and international), as well as forums. The manual is faithful to the productions based on the works of the classics, but at the same time work is underway to update the repertoire.
Drama Theater (Nizhny Novgorod) gathered in40 great actors have their own troupe, 11 of whom are the title of Honored Artist of Russia and three are the People's. Already the 217th season continues to delight the audience in the drama theater in Nizhny Novgorod.
The repertoire for the most part consists ofclassical plays, although there are works by contemporary authors, as well as fairy tales for children: “The Twelfth Night” by William Shakespeare, “The Marriage” by N.V. Gogol, “Imaginary Sick” Ж-Б. Moliere, “The Beggar’s Opera” by J. Gay, “Classmates” by Y. Polyakova, “Too Married Taxi Driver” by R. Cooney, “Puss in Boots” by W. Perro and others.