Anton Pavlovich Chekhov was a Russian playwright and short-story writer. His career as a playwright produced four classics, and his best short stories are held in high esteem by writers and critics. Along with Henrik Ibsen and August Strindberg, Chekhov is often referred to as one of the three seminal figures in the birth of early modernism in the theatre. Chekhov was a physician by profession. "Medicine is my lawful wife," he once said, "and literature is my mistress."
Konstantin Sergeyevich Stanislavski was a seminal Soviet Russian theatre practitioner. He was widely recognized as an outstanding character actor, and the many productions that he directed garnered him a reputation as one of the leading theatre directors of his generation. His principal fame and influence, however, rests on his "system" of actor training, preparation, and rehearsal technique.
Olga Leonardovna Knipper-Chekhova was a Russian and Soviet stage actress. She was married to Anton Chekhov.
The Moscow Art Theatre (or MAT; Russian: Московский Художественный академический театр, Moskovskiy Hudojestvenny Akademicheskiy Teatr was a theatre company in Moscow. It was founded in 1898 by the seminal Russian theatre practitioner Konstantin Stanislavski, together with the playwright and director Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko. It was conceived as a venue for naturalistic theatre, in contrast to the melodramas that were Russia's dominant form of theatre at the time. The theatre, the first to regularly put on shows implementing Stanislavski's system, proved hugely influential in the acting world and in the development of modern American theatre and drama.
Vladimir Ivanovich Nemirovich-Danchenko was a Soviet and Russian theatre director, writer, pedagogue, playwright, producer and theatre administrator, who founded the Moscow Art Theatre with his colleague, Konstantin Stanislavski, in 1898.
My Life in Art is the autobiography of the Russian actor and theatre director Konstantin Stanislavski. It was first commissioned while Stanislavski was in the United States on tour with the Moscow Art Theatre, and was first published in Boston, Massachusetts in English in 1924. It was later revised and published in a Russian-language edition in Moscow under the title Моя жизнь в искусстве. It is divided into 4 sections entitled: 1-Artistic Childhood, 2-Artistic Youth, 3-Artistic Adolescence and 4-Artistic Adulthood.
Realism in the theatre was a general movement that began in 19th-century theatre, around the 1870s, and remained present through much of the 20th century. It developed a set of dramatic and theatrical conventions with the aim of bringing a greater fidelity of real life to texts and performances. These conventions occur in the text, design, performance style, and narrative structure. They include recreating on stage a facsimile of real life except missing a fourth wall. Characters speak in naturalistic, authentic dialogue without verse or poetic stylings, and acting is meant to emulate human behaviour in real life. Narratives typically are psychologically driven, and include day-to-day, ordinary scenarios. Narrative action moves forward in time, and supernatural presences do not occur. Sound and music are diegetic only. Part of a broader artistic movement, it includes Naturalism and Socialist realism.
The Stanislavski and Nemirovich-Danchenko Moscow Academic Music Theatre is a music theatre in Moscow.
Savva Timofeyevich Morozov was a Russian textile magnate and philanthropist. Established by Savva Vasilyevich Morozov (1770–1862), the Morozov family was the fifth-richest in Russia at the beginning of the 20th century.
Maria Osipovna (Iosifovna) Knebel was a Soviet and Russian actress, theatre practitioner and acting theorist. Having trained with Konstantin Stanislavski, Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko, and Michael Chekhov, her work integrated the approaches and emphases of all three, with a particular focus on Stanislavski's technique of "active analysis" in the rehearsal of plays. She worked as a character actor, a theatre director, and a teacher. Her students included the actor Oleg Yefremov, the playwright Viktor Rozov, and the directors Anatoly Vasiliev, Leonid Heifetz, Alexander Burdonsky, Beno Axionov, Joseph Raihelgauz, Sergei Artsibashev and Adolf Shapiro as well as director and theatre practitioner Sam Kogan. In 1958, she was named a People's Artist of the RSFSR.
Vladimir Fyodorovich Gribunin was a male actor from the Russian Empire and later the Soviet Union.
Alexander Rafailovich Kugel was a Russian and Soviet theatre critic and editor, founder of the False Mirror, a popular theatre of parodies.
Vasily Vasilyevich Luzhsky was a Russian, Soviet stage actor, theatre director and pedagogue, associated with the Moscow Art Theatre.
The Griboyedov Prize was a Russian literary award established in 1878 by the Society of Russian Dramatists and Opera Composers to honor Alexander Griboyedov. The opening ceremony was held on 11 February, on the anniversary of the great Russian playwright's death. The prize, collected through private donations, was awarded to the best play of the year, produced in Saint Petersburg and Moscow by either Imperial Theatres or their private counterparts. Despite the fact that the Prize was launched in 1878, it was first awarded in 1883.
Maria Lyudomirovna Petrovskaya was a Russian stage actress associated with the Moscow Art Theatre, better known under her stage name Roksanova (Роксанова).
Maria Alexandrovna Samarova was a Moscow-born Russian Empire and Soviet stage actress and reader in drama, associated with the Moscow Art Theatre.
Maria Nikolayevna Krasovskaya-Kalitinskaya was a Russian actress, theatre director and reader in drama, better known under her stage name Maria Germanova (Германова).
Nina Nikolayevna Levestamm was a Russian and Soviet stage actress, associated with Moscow Art Theatre, known under her stage name Litovtseva. Actor Vasily Kachalov was her husband.
Adolf Yakovlevich Shapiro is a Soviet, Latvian and Russian theater director, acting teacher, playwright and author. People's Artist of the Latvian SSR (1986), Merited Master of the Arts of the Russian Federation (2019), Laureate of the State Prize of the Latvian SSR (1987).
