MAKHACHKALA, May 26 – RIA Dagestan. A directors' laboratory has opened at the M.Gorky Russian Drama Theater, where five directors prepare sketch productions based on Russian classical works. The group comprises four guest directors—Alexey Zolotovitsky, Mikhail Lebedev, Roman Gabria and Yaroslav Zhevnerov—all professionals with extensive and varied theatrical portfolios—and Yulia Timokhina, a company actress currently studying directing at the Boris Shchukin Theatre Institute.
The laboratory format had been employed twice before in Dagestan with positive results, providing an opportunity to encounter new directorial names, creative methodologies and approaches to actors and text. This year’s sketches share a unifying theme: love in Russian classical literature. The scheduled works include pieces by Garshin, Nabokov, Bunin, Turgenev and Gogol.
Theater director Timur Magomedov emphasizes the importance of building a homegrown directing school, describing the laboratory as an optimal way to try out new material and evaluate directors.
The season is overseen by chief director Georgy Surkov and the works will be assessed by invited experts—theater scholar and curator Alexandrina Shakleeva and theater critic Ekaterina Danilova. Audiences can attend the sketch presentations on the Small Stage on May 31; admission is free with advance registration on the theater’s official website.