About Performances Henrietta Yanovskaya Kama Ginkas Sergei Barkhin Schedule of performances Contacts

	About the Moscow Young Generation Theater (MTYuZ) The Moscow Young Generation Theater – one of the oldest theaters of the current Russian era – began its history in 1920. It was the first in a long line of Soviet theaters given the impersonal name of TYuZ, an abbreviation for Young Spectator Theater. Over the course of its history the theater has known successes and failures, but the contrived Soviet notion of a theater created only for a young audience strictly limited the repertory and, accordingly, the creative aspirations of directors and actors. The most talented among these artists naturally aspired to freeing themselves of the notion of “children’s” theater as quickly as possible. This changed in 1987 on the day that the theater’s new chief director Henrietta Yanovskaya unveiled the premiere of her first production at MTYuZ: Mikhail Bulgakov’s “The Heart of a Dog.” It not only heralded the beginning of a new era at MTYuZ, it signified the rebirth of freedom in Russian theater at large. After many long, difficult decades, during which the best theater artists were compelled to work underground to one extent or another, Yanovskaya’s production symbolized Russian theater once again speaking freely and openly. It was a voice, thanks to triumphant tours of “The Heart of a Dog,” that was heard in Germany, France, Belgium, Switzerland, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Israel and Turkey. As Henrietta Yanovskaya says, this simple “children’s” theater had now become a “theater for people.” And it became famous beyond Russia’s borders, each of its new productions invariably attracting the attention of the international theater community. The New Generation Theater today is a theater of two directors, Henrietta Yanovskaya and Kama Ginkas, the designer Sergei Barkhin, and a talented troupe of actors. Over the years its productions have received numerous prizes and awards. “Good-bye, America!!!”, a parody show written by Alexander Nedzvetsky and staged by Henrietta Yanovskaya, was named Best Show in Moscow in the 1988-1989 season. Yanovskaya’s production of “Pewter Rings” by Tamara Gabbe was honored as the best children’s production at the Moscow Festival. Its performers also won awards for Best Male Role and Best Episodic Role. Yanovskaya received the Crystal Turandot Best Director award and the Seagull award for her production of Alexander Ostrovsky’s “The Storm” in 1998. That year this production was nominated for a State Prize of Russia. Yanovskaya received the Seagull award for her production of “Witness for the Prosecution” in 2001. In 2006 Yanovskaya received the Crystal Turandot award for best director, and the Stanislavsky award for her production of “A Streetcar Named Desire.” In 2008 Kama Ginkas received the Crystal Turandot Best Director award for “Roberto Zucco.” The Russian national Golden Mask festival debuted in 1994 and every year directors, actors, designers and productions of MTYuZ have been nominated for awards. In the category of Best Stage Design, Sergei Barkhin has received three Golden Masks – for Yanovskaya’s “Ivanov and Others,” Ginkas’s “The Black Monk,” and Ginkas’s “Rothschild’s Fiddle.” In 2003 “The Lady with the Lapdog” was named Best Small-Stage Production, Kama Ginkas – Best Director. In 2005 “Rothschild’s Fiddle” – the world premiere of which took place in January 2004 at the Yale Repertory Theater in the United States, the Moscow premiere of which took place March 6 – was honored with a Golden Mask for Best Large-Stage Production. In 1991 Kama Ginkas received the Moscow Critics’ Best Director Prize for “We Play ‘Crime,” based on Dostoevsky’s novel “Crime and Punishment.” Ginkas received the Crystal Turandot for his production of “K.I. from ‘Crime’,” another Dostoevsky dramatization. In the 1998-1999 season, Ginkas’s productions of “The Golden Cockerel,” based on Alexander Pushkin’s poem, and “Pushkin. Duel. Death,” based on historical documents, were winners at the Russian national “Russia – First Love…” festival. Ginkas’s dramatization of Chekhov’s story “The Black Monk” was one of the sensations of the 1999 season. In October 2000, the show won the Grand Prix and the Critics’ Prize for Best Production at the Baltic House international theater festival in St. Petersburg. Ginkas was honored with the Seagull Best Director award and Sergei Makovetsky was named Best Male Actor for his performance as Kovrin. In 1999 Ginkas was honored with the State Prize of Russia for the shows “K.I. from ‘Crime’,” “Execution of the Decembrists” and “Puskin. Duel. Death.” MTYuZ received three Seagull awards in 2006: Igor Yasulovich received “The Mask of Zorro” citation (for an innovative interpretation of a classical role); Ginkas was named Best Director, and Sergei Barkhin was awarded Best Designer. A fourth “Seagull” was taken by Yelena Orlova, designer for MTYuZ’s production of “The Little Green Bird.” MTYuZ is famed for its highly talented troupe of actors, all of whom are individually gifted, but who also form a unified, harmonic ensemble. Famous actors such as Igor Yasulovich, Valery Barinov, Sergei Shakurov, Igor Gordin, Viktoria Verberg, Yulia Svezhakova, Arina Nesterova and Marina Zubanova work in the theater, as well many promising young actors – Alexei Alexeev, Andrei Finyagin, Nikolai Ivanov, Alyona Stebunova, Yelena Lyadova and others. In Kama Ginkas’s and Henrietta Yanovskaya’s shows, actors from other theaters, such as Oksana Mysina, Era Ziganshina and Sergei Makovetsky, blend superbly into the theater’s ensemble. In recent years the theater’s actors have received numerous prestigious awards: the Crystal Turandot (Yulia Svezhakova), the Seagull (Maria Zubanova, Svezhakova, Igor Gordin), the Innokentky Smoktunovsky award (Arina Nesterova), the “Komsomolskaya Pravda” award (Svezhakova, Irina Loseva, Anna Yanovskaya), and the Stanislavsky award (Gordin). In 2001 Sergei Makovetsky (“The Black Monk”) and Igor Gordin and Yulia Svezhakova (“The Lady with the Lapdog”) were nominated for the Idol award. In 2001 Igor Yasulovich was awarded the State Prize of Russia, and in 2006 he received the Stanislavsky award for best actor for his performances in “The Black Monk” and “A Ridiculous Poem.” In 2004 Valery Barinov received the Stanislavsky award for best male role (“Rothschild’s Fiddle”). The entire ensemble of Henrietta Yanovskaya’s “A Streetcar Named Desire” received the Seagull award in 2005. The Moscow New Generation Theater frequently tours to Russian cities and participates in Russian festivals. Destinations have included St. Petersburg, Samara, Vologda, Novosibirsk, Rostov-on-Don, Surgut, Nizhnevartovsk and other cities. Internationally the theater has participated in prestigious international festivals in France, Germany, Switzerland, Sweden, Finland, Italy, The Netherlands, Yugoslavia, Poland, Bulgaria, Estonia, Georgia, the United States and other countries. In 1997 and 1998, the productions of “K.I. from ‘Crime’,” “The Storm” and “Tatyana Repina” were included in the official program of the Avignon festival in France. All of these shows enjoyed tremendous success with critics, the press and the public. The theater has twice participated in the BITEF Festival in Belgrade, Yugoslavia. “The Storm” took the grand prize in 1999 for innovative directing and best acting ensemble. “K.I. from ‘Crime’” received the special critics’ award in 2000. Shows from MTYuZ have been presented at the Kontakt international theater festival in Torun, Poland: “The Black Monk” in 2001, “The Lady with the Lapdog” in 2003 (winning the Polish Radio PIK award for Original Theatrical Form), and “Rothschild’s Fiddle” in 2005. “K.I. from ‘Crime’” was a major event at the Paradise Lost international theater festival in Amsterdam, Netherlands, in 2002. In August 2003, the theater participated in the SummerScape international festival at Bard College in upstate New York. The shows of MTYuZ have performed at the following international festivals: Hamburg, Germany, 1999 – “The Storm”; The Christmas Meetings art festival in Novosibirsk, Russia, 1999 – “Tatyana Repina”; The Life festival, Vilnius, Lithuania, 2000 – “The Black Monk”; Mini Fest 2000, Rostov-on-Don, Russia – “Good-bye, America!!!”; The Baltic Circle of Latvia, Riga, Latvia, 2000 – “The Black Monk”; GIFT, the Mikhail Tumanishvili Art Festival, Tbilisi, Georgia – “The Storm” and “K.I. from ‘Crime’” (1998), “The Black Monk” (2000), “K.I. from ‘Crime’” and “Witness for the Prosecution” (2002); SETT 2000, Stuttgart, Germany – “Pushkin. Duel. Death”; Midsummer Night’s Dream festival, Tallinn, Estonia, 2000 – “K.I. from ‘Crime’”; Voices of History festival, Vologda, Russia, 2001 – “Execution of the Decembrists”; Festival Tampere, Finland, 2001 – “The Black Monk”; Kunstfest, Weimar, Germany, 2001 – “The Black Monk”; The Fall Festival, Rome, Italy, 2001 – “The Happy Prince”; Russian Season, Helsinki, Finland – “The Happy Prince” (2002), “A Taste of Honey” and “Dreams of Exile” (2003); The 5th international festival of Russian Art on the Azure Coast, Nice, France, 2003 – “Dreams of Exile”; MESS 2004, the international Festival of Theater and Film, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina – “Dreams of Exile”; Spring of Lithuanian Theater festival, Kaunas, Lithuania, 2005 – “Rothschild’s Fiddle”; International Festival of Art XV, Vitebsk, Belarus, 2005 – “Rothschild’s Fiddle”; Ex Ponto, Ljubljana, Slovenia, 2005 – “Dreams of Exile”; Real Theater, Nizhny-Novgorod, 2007 – “Rothschild’s Fiddle”; Norilsk Season, Norilsk, Russia, 2007 – “Rothschild’s Fiddle”; European Theater Festival, Sibiu, Romania, 2007 – “A Streetcar Named Desire”; XI International Theater Festival, Bogota, Colombia, 2008 – “A Ridiculous Poem; Rainbow festival, St. Petersburg, Russia, 2008 – “Roberto Zucco”; Golden Onion festival, Samara, Russia, 2008 – “The Extraordinary Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn based on Mark Twain”; International Theater Festival XVIII, Bucharest, Romania, 2008 – “A Ridiculous Poem” and “The Black Monk.” MTYuZ is a perennial participant in the Baltic House international theater festival in St. Petersburg, Russia – “Pushkin. Duel. Death” and “The Golden Cockerel” (1999); “The Black Monk” (2000); “The Happy Prince” (2001); “The Lady with the Lapdog” (2002); “Dreams of Exile” and “Rothschild’s Fiddle” (2004). Since 2004, the theater has annually toured Russia as a participant of the Golden Mask festival – “Ivanov and Others…” (Oryol 2004, Tyumen 2005); “Rothschild’s Fiddle” (Omsk, Chelyabinsk, Magnitogorsk 2005); “A Streetcar Named Desire” (Yekaterinburg 2006, Omsk 2007); “The Extraordinary Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn based on Mark Twain” (Chelyabinsk 2006). In 2001 “Witness for the Prosecution” participated in the Seagull theater festival in Surgut and Nizhnevartovsk, Russia. “A Streetcar Named Desire” (2005) and “A Ridiculous Poem” (2007) were performed at the theater festival in the Siberian city of Khanty-Mansiisk. The Moscow New Generation Theater has always been quick to come forward in support of charitable activities. Every year on June 1 – International Children’s Day – the theater performs benefit shows for orphans, children with disabilities, children from low-income families, veteran’s families, refugee children and so on. MTYuZ’s constant partners include the Bank of Moscow, the UN Information Center, UNICEF, the Moscow Children’s Fund, and the Russian Children’s Fund. Over the course of many years MTYuZ has provided charity organizations with free monthly tickets to shows. Currently, the theater renders assistance to approximately 70 charitable organizations in Moscow and the Moscow region. Moscow TYuZ is socially active not only in Moscow, but also while on tour. In 2000, while on tour in Rostov-on-Don, a benefit concert was held in the veteran’s hospital for the severely injured. In 2002 and 2003, while touring in Sevastopol, concerts were mounted for Navy soldiers and for the crew of the cruiser “Moscow” – free seats were also distributed to the sailors and officers of the Black Sea Fleet. Since 2003, with the aid of the Consulate of the Russian Federation in Estonia and the government of Moscow, MTYuZ performs one of the shows in its yearly tours to Tallinn as a benefit for children from foster homes, low-income families, disabled children, and Russian-language families from across Estonia. It has become a fine tradition for the actors of the theater to visit children’s hospitals. In 2003, a benefit concert was held in a children’s maxillofacial surgery center. New Year’s Eve shows are performed in the State Children’s Clinic in the hematology, oncology, organ transplant, and micro-surgical wards. In January 2005, MTYuZ premiered “Pewter Rings” as part of the 2nd “Winter Fairy-Tale” Charity Theater Festival for Children in Chelyabinsk, Russia. In September 2005, with the support of the Bank of Moscow, “Pewter Rings” was performed as a benefit for the children of Beslan in Vladikavkaz. In September of 2006, this project – Theater for the Children of Beslan – was continued. Four performances of “The Extraordinary Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn based on Mark Twain” were performed for the youngest children who survived the horrendous terrorist attack at the Beslan elementary school. “Witness for the Prosecution” was performed for the parents, teachers, and children of upper classes.