A History of One Theater

Taganka Theater is a theater located in the Art Nouveau building on Taganskaya Square in Moscow. Under Lyubimov, the theater shot to popularity in Moscow, with Vladimir Vysotsky,, Zinaida Slavina, and Alla Demidova as the leading actors. Other notable members of Lyubimov’s troupe have been Valery Zolotukhin, Veniamin Smekhov, and Leonid Filatov. Nikolai Erdman (famous for his work with Vsevolod Meyerhold in the 1920s) was responsible for the theater’s repertoire. When another outstanding stage director, Anatoly Efros, was appointed to run the theater in Lyubimov’s stead, he was boycotted and reviled by leading actors in the foulest terms. Yuri Petrovich Lyubimov was a Russian stage actor and director associated with the internationally renowned Taganka Theater, which he founded in 1964. He was one of the leading names in the Russian theater world. As an actor, he performed in 37 plays and 17 films, and several classics. Under Lyubimov, the theater rose to become the most popular in Moscow. In 1971 Shakespeare’s Hamlet became one of Lyubimov’s highly successful and much acclaimed productions. In 1976 he was awarded by the BITEF First Prize for Hamlet. Lubimov’s celebrated production of Bertold Brecht’s The Good Person of Szechwan with Anna Orochko’s class at the Schukin Theater Institute earned him the artistic directorship of the Taganka Theater.