The fairy tale theater on 121 Moskovsky Prospekt staged its first performance back in 1944, on December 31, when the Great Patriotic War was still underway in Leningrad, which had recently been liberated from the blockade. From this time on, New Year's Eve, the theater celebrates its birthday.
Three fairies
Exhausted by the war and forgotten how to laugh, children needed positive emotions and joy. The three Leningrad actresses who returned from the war understood and felt this with all their heart, so in incredibly difficult conditions they organized a puppet fairy tale theater. These three witches: Chernyak Ekaterina - the first director and director of the theater, Elena Gilodi and Olga Lyandzberg - actresses.
The theater gained strength and expanded in the years after the war, although it received the status of a state 12 years later, but for the time being it lived only due to the enthusiasm and creative potential of the creators. Only in 1956 he was allocated a rehearsal room on 12 Vladimirsky Prospekt, but without an auditorium, so the fairy tale puppet theater continued to move from place to place, which made his performances known and successful not only in the Leningrad Region and the city itself, but also in other cities of the country.
A new stage in the life of the theater
In the early 1970s, the theater troupe was led by an experienced puppeteer Yuri Eliseev. Together with the artist Nelly Polyakova, whom he invited to collaborate, he created many interesting performances, they were successful and gained recognition both in our country and abroad.
At the same time, Nikolai Borovkov began his directorial work in the theater. With his arrival, foreign tours of the theater are increasingly organized to show fairy tales to children of different countries, and performances began to participate and win awards at festivals at the international level.
Fairytale Theater on Moskovsky Prospekt
The main event in the life of the theater took place in November 1986 (on the 22nd), when he finally had his own house with a stage, rehearsal and auditoriums. And organized and inspired by the construction of the building, Georgy Nikolaevich Turaev - director of the theater from 1965 to 1987. The architects and authors of the project were T. Ya. Razin, I.P. Kondratyev, V.V. Ivanov.
And now, 12 years after laying the first stone, the Tale Theater on Moskovsky Prospekt opened its hospitable doors for little art lovers.
Theater troupe today
The artistic director and chief director of the theater today is Igor Ignatiev. To a large extent, the performances themselves have changed, from small "visiting" to large stationary ones, using modern art techniques with sound and light effects.
The artists of the theater - Polyakova Nelli, Ignatieva Anna - are the authors of dolls, costumes, scenography. Possessing talent and creative personality, complementing each other, they create and fill with miracles the fabulously beautiful world of the theater.
The fairy tale theater on Moskovsky Prospekt inspires and warms the troupe of the theater, consisting of 20 actors, almost all of them are diploma winners and theater awards and competitions. Among them there are honored artists of Russia: Emilia Kulikova, Lyudmila Blagoeva, Polina Semenova, Valentin Morozov and others.
Awards
The theater’s desire to move forward and not stop at what has been achieved in staging interesting performances was noticed by critics. As a result of this attention, the theater was nominated more than once and won victories in competitions for theater awards. The performance "The Nutcracker and the Mouse King" became the Golden Mask Prize laureate, and Igor and Anna Ignatiev, the director and production designer, received the State Prize of Russia.
The fairy tale theater at the Moscow Gates has toured and festivals in many countries: Finland, Spain, Turkey, Egypt, Germany, Kuwait and others. On his stage he hosted puppet theaters in Germany, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia.
Festivals and tours do not distract storytellers and wizard artists from creating new sets and dolls. Every year, the fairy tale theater (St. Petersburg) pleases premieres of their viewers with an unusual interpretation of classical plots, new bright decorations, and fairy-tale characters of performances sow beauty and harmony, desire for good in the souls of little Petersburgers.
Events in the lobby
A fabulous atmosphere envelops the viewer immediately, as soon as he manages to cross the threshold of the building. He is greeted by a kind fairy surrounded by fantastic animals.
The St. Petersburg Puppet Theater, in addition to its main activity, organized various events in the lobby so that the audience would not get bored before the performances and intermission:
- Students of teacher training college teach kids the art of origami, beadwork, knitting on fingers, the skill of making rag dolls, drawing. This is Saturday before the performance, which starts at 14 o’clock.
- On Sunday at the same time, artists and actors come to a small meeting for a small audience. They talk about themselves and their ideas, and also demonstrate their own master classes.
- On weekends, everyone is given a wonderful face painting.
- In addition, after the performance, excursions are organized in the theater building, which reveal all the secrets of the birth of the performance: the guys get acquainted with the work of make-up artists, decorators, props and all those without which the audience will not meet with the beautiful. Theaters talk about the process of creating the play, dedicate to the sacrament of making scenery and dolls.
- In the intermission or after the performance, you can have a meal by visiting the buffet, there you can also celebrate children's holidays - from birthday to graduation.
Ticket price
Tickets for a puppet theater for a performance on a weekday can be purchased for 250 rubles, and on weekends - from 300. Guided tours of the museum cost 250 rubles, they must be booked in advance by phone. For those who attended the performance, the price of the tour is 150 rubles.
Repertoire
For decades, the troupe has honed each of its productions, so it has a huge repertoire of luggage. It is designed for a different age category. Performances for the youngest art lovers (from 3-4 years old) are represented, for example, by the painting "Fox-Dodger", which will tell about what can happen to the sly ones. This is a kind and naive tale, and will certainly be appreciated by the child, as well as "Masha and the Bear." These time settings take no more than 50 minutes.
Children from 5 years old will like "Thumbelina", "The Wizard of the Emerald City", the comedy "Cat and Mouse", the shed "The Little Humpbacked Horse". You can also watch the productions of "Blue Beard" by Charles Perrault, "From Liverpool Harbor" by Rudyard Kipling, a fantastic production of "Green Blood", "The Tale of Ivan the Lazy Boy" based on folklore.
Younger schoolchildren who need more serious performances will be able to see “Black Chicken” - real St. Petersburg history, the play “Dwarf Nose” based on Gauf’s fairy tale, “Crane Feathers” - a Japanese parable. Since 2013, the play “Elion. Version 2.0” has been included in the theater’s repertoire - this is an exciting story about the adventures of a fifteen-year-old youth who saved the alien planet Elion. It was inhabited by various creatures, such as elves, trolls, gnomes, orcs and others, they joined forces against evil monsters.
The musical “Royal Sandwich”, which is based on poems by English poets, as well as “Circus”, a puppet show about the circus, stands apart.
The world of dolls is without a doubt the closest thing to children who fantasize on the basis of the smallest images and give a clear outline to the fictional heroes of their fairy tales. But even adults who came along with the guys can feel like children for a moment and plunge into the magic of a fairy tale, watching, holding their breath, for the fate of the heroes.