Published on: 2026-09-06
Source: Moscow Government – Правительство Москвы –
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Mayakovsky Theater, supervised by the metropolitan To the Department of Culture, opened the 104th season. Artistic director Yegor Peregudov and director Ekaterina Lapshina talked about what awaits the artists and the audience.
Main Stage Premieres
The first premiere of the season can be seen in the coming days: the play will be shown on September 12, 13, and 26 “Karenina. Volume Two”. Let the title not be misleading — there was no “first volume”: Egor Peregudov deliberately skips the beginning of Anna and Vronsky’s novel, her explanation with her husband, and the subsequent breakup. Instead, he focuses on the denouement and the finale. According to the director, this is not the story of one person, but of an entire family and its tragedy. He defines the central idea of the production the same way the writer once described his work: a family thought.
“Tolstoy is interesting and powerful in details, nuances, and, of course, psychology: the understanding of how complex and nonlinear the relationships between a man and a woman are. How difficult it is to preserve love and build a family. This is exactly what we want to explore in detail. Working with prose allows us to show the subjective views of different characters. Part of the play the audience will see through Karenin’s eyes, part through Vronsky’s eyes, and part through Dolly’s eyes. And only the third act — directly through Anna’s eyes,” the director said.
The author’s analysis promises to be very detailed: the performance will last more than five hours. The scenography is handled by People’s Artist of Russia Vladimir Arefyev, who promises a complete change of scenery in each of the three acts. A quarter of the Mayakovsky Theatre troupe is involved in the performance. Among the actors appearing on stage are Darya Ursulyak, Alexey Fateev, Makar Zaporozhsky, Ivan Vybornov, Anastasia Mishina.
In the spring, director Evgeny Zakirov, known to Mayakovka audiences for his plays “Ward No. 6” and “Robbers”, will present “Crime and Punishment” based on the eponymous novel by Fyodor Dostoevsky. Before the premiere, lectures, round tables, and discussions will be organized for the audience.
In addition, work will begin in the spring on the play “Irkutsk Story” based on the play by Alexei Arbuzov. At the center of the plot is the frivolous Valya, caught in a love triangle between the selfish electrician Viktor and the noble machinist Sergei.
In 1959, when the then chief director of the theater Nikolai Okhlopkov began forming a large troupe of talented young people, this play became very important for the future repertoire. Having barely read the text, he immediately became passionate about staging it, but was refused: the play was already being prepared by other theaters. To circumvent the ban, Okhlopkov disguised rehearsals as ordinary studio classes, and in February 1960, Mayakovka’s stage hosted the premiere of “Irkutsk Story.”
A new version of the production is being prepared by Yegor Peregudov, who will add recognizable songs from the 1950s-1960s.
“Like Nikolai Pavlovich Okhlopkov, I want to entrust the main roles in this play to our youth, peers of the Arbuzy characters. It seems to me that the time has come to look at Soviet dramaturgy in a new way — without postmodern irony, without transferring it to another historical context. I really like the people in this story — their dreams, aspirations, actions,” said Yegor Peregudov.
Other premieres
On the small stage, they will show Oleg Sapiro’s “Widow’s Steamship.” Irina Grekova’s novella tells the story of several women who lost their husbands and were forced to live together in a post-war communal apartment.
The premiere is also awaiting the stage on Sretenka — next year, Alexander Ostrovsky’s “The Storm” will be performed there, directed by Egor Kovalev.
“Probably, I have seen many different productions of ‘The Thunderstorm.’ But I will take the liberty to say that I have not yet seen a staging that matches my own feeling of this play. And I am interested in trying to uncover it, to find it, to understand it in my own way. During my studies, I tried to work on this play, to delve into it. We had a semester dedicated to Alexander Ostrovsky, and we could try any play of the author. But I spent the entire semester persistently working on ‘The Thunderstorm.’ So, in a way, for me, it remains an unfinished gestalt,” shared the director.
In December, the first stage of work will begin on the production “Three Sisters,” which will be created by actor, director, teacher, and producer from Argentina Gabriel Chamé Buendía. The premiere is scheduled for the summer of 2027.
“I would like to work a bit on the poetic depth and realism of the text, and I want the art of clowning, which I practice, not just to complement but to influence the characters, creating a special language for them that could give a poetic, absurd, comic, and tragic tone to Chekhov’s play ‘Three Sisters’,” he noted.
Belarusian director Yevgeny Kornyag will begin rehearsals at Mayakovka — he will start working on Homer’s “Odyssey”.
And very soon, on October 29, the birthday of the Mayakovsky Theater, a festive evening titled “104” will be held on the Sretenka stage. It will be dedicated, among other things, to the 100th anniversary of the building it occupies. The theater’s stage appeared 45 years ago thanks to the artistic director Andrey Goncharov (who passed away in 2001).
Projects and tours
The famous projects of the Mayakovsky Theatre will continue, one of them being “Apartment Concert at Mayak.” Previously, guests and young troupe actors met to reminisce together about the poetry and music of the 1990s and 2000s. The new season will be dedicated to Viktor Tsoi and the band “Kino” — his songs will be sung, poems read, and excerpts from interviews discussed.
One of the theater’s most interesting projects has become the club “Six Characters with Questions for the Author” — an experimental laboratory that allows for rethinking contemporary prose through the means of theatrical art. The upcoming meeting will be dedicated to Lev Danilkin’s book “Palazzo Madama. The Imaginary Museum of Irina Antonova,” which made the shortlist of this season’s national literary award “Big Book” in the “Non-fiction” category. People’s Artist of Russia Olga Prokofieva will take the stage in the role of Irina Antonova, who headed the State Museum of Fine Arts named after A.S. Pushkin for over half a century.
Moreover, this year the performers will have a busy touring life. Already in September, Yuri Ioffe’s production “Native” will open the program of the anniversary, 10th All-Russian Festival “Theatrical Prikhoperie”, and the play “The Search Continues” will go on tour to Yekaterinburg as part of the International Youth Festival.
In October, the production by Anatoly Shulev “Eldest Son” They will be seen in Nizhny Tagil and Yekaterinburg, and Ivan Orlov’s “Passions-Mordancies” based on the eponymous story by Maxim Gorky will be shown in Veliky Novgorod. The production will take part in the International Festival of Theatrical Arts named after F.M. Dostoevsky. In February, Anatoly Shulev’s play “Simplicity is Enough for Any Sage” will go to Surgut.
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