Gogol in the center: the theater announced a change of director and new productions in the 101st season

The Moscow Gogol Theater was one of the first to open its doors to the audience and invited them to celebrate the 101st season together. Artistic director Anton Yakovlev presented his ideas, new directors and artists to the troupe. And Moscow's Minister of Culture, Alexei Fursin, gave the theater full financial carte blanche to implement any idea. The details are in the Izvestia report.

Revolution is not required

The Gogol Theater has a complicated history. Three years ago, he changed the Gogol Center and is still trying to find his way under Anton Yakovlev. During this time, the troupe has been updated by 70%. Of the 59 artists who serve there today, 40 have been invited by the new artistic director. Almost all of them are young guys who have just graduated from theater universities.

Their energy is especially needed now for a theater with a century-old history, which is trying to ignite the audience's attention to its new repertoire. Three years ago, Anton Yakovlev came to the ruined and divided theater with a manifesto — a "new aesthetic program" that rejected all the ideas of the Gogol Center. Time has passed. Today, it is clear that some of the awkwardness between the staff has disappeared, and the portrait lobby sparkled again from the flashes of cameras and the smiles of the rested artists.

Alexey Fursin, Head of the Moscow Department of Culture, took the floor first. He congratulated the audience on the start of the 101st season and introduced the new director, Konstantin Chernyshev, who was appointed to this position in July 2025. Prior to that, he was a member of the management team of Nikita Mikhalkov's Workshop 12, and from 2007 to 2021 he headed the Theater on Malaya Bronnaya, which is now simply called the Theater on Bronnaya.

— It says in my certificate — a man from the personnel reserve. Although, of course, this is not the case. Konstantin Vitalievich is a very experienced person. I place maximum responsibility on you. The welfare and salaries of these wonderful people depend on you," Fursin said to loud applause from the audience.

Next, the minister instructed to analyze the work of all departments of the theater within a month and send a timely request to the department so that the agency finances everything on time.

Chernyshev, in turn, noted that in a month and a half after his appointment, he did not waste time in vain: he carried out a personnel purge and had already increased ticket sales seven times compared to last year for the same period.

— I understand that there is no need for a revolution here. We must continue to preserve and develop the theater," Chernyshev told the troupe.

Artistic director Anton Yakovlev noted that it was his idea to invite Chernyshev, explaining this by the need for "a push to move forward."

Yakovlev himself, first of all, reported to the troupe for the work on the last, anniversary, season. And as a bonus, I received an offer from Alexey Fursin to work harder. Because the department is ready to increase the budget of the Gogol Theater.

— I see that Anton Yurievich staged four performances last season. I urge you not to be so modest either in terms of ideas or suggestions. If you don't ask, they won't give you. We need more of your ideas, and we are ready to finance it! — concluded the head of the department.

Reading with orchestra and new classics

The first premiere on the Main Stage will be Yakovlev's production "The Fatalist" based on the novel "The Hero of Our Time". The premiere is scheduled for December.

— The production will combine the classics and our days. It will be the story of a young modern writer who finds himself in the space of a novel and becomes Pechorin, such an interesting phantasmagoria in the spirit of fantastic realism, which our theater professes. We are writing the dramatization together with Elena Isaeva, with whom we worked together on Crime and Punishment," Yakovlev told the audience.

In November, the play "Late Love" based on Ostrovsky's play, directed by a 5th-year student of the directing faculty of GITIS (workshop of Sergei Zhenovach), will be performed on the Small Stage Victoria Khomchenko. The production will be the girl's debut on the professional stage.

Another premiere on the Small Stage is the play "Morphine" based on the story by Mikhail Bulgakov, directed by Alexander Limin, who has been successfully collaborating with the Gogol Theater as a director of plastics for a long time.

In the second half of the season, the premiere of the long-awaited children's play based on one of the famous works of foreign classics is scheduled on the Main Stage. The name will be announced later. But the director is already known. They will be Alexey Frolenkov, whose children's plays are successfully performed on the stages of Moscow theaters.

Another surprise is the production based on the script of the film "The Beginning" starring Inna Churikova. Directed by Roman Gabria. In addition, the play "The Living and the Dead" directed by Polina Agureeva will be included in the repertoire of the Gogol Theater, and "Resurrection" based on the novel by Leo Tolstoy directed by Pavel Parkhomenko will move from the Small Stage to the Main Stage.

The Gogol Theater will continue to practice laboratory screenings. Actress and young director Alyona Goncharova will present her sketch of the play based on Ivan Bunin's stories, and Eldar Tramov will begin work on Marina Tsvetaeva's work "The Three Ages of Casanova."

This season, the Gogol Theater is preparing to implement a joint project with the Moscow Concert. Namely, a musical and dramatic cycle accompanied by an orchestra based on the works of Saltykov-Shchedrin, the brothers Grimm, Edgar Poe, O'Henry, Francis Scott Fitzgerald.

This year, the troupe has increased by four more artists. Viktor Zhludov, a leading actor of the Novosibirsk Red Torch Theater, Egor Abramov, a graduate of GITIS, Polina Rezaeva, a graduate of VGIK (workshop of V.A. Grammatikov) and Mariana Epinatieva, a graduate of the Shchukin Theater Institute (workshop of G. Shaposhnikov), joined the team. While new performances are just being prepared for release, the Gogol Theater will open the 101st season with premieres of the past: on the Main stage - "Crime and Punishment" directed by Anton Yakovlev, on the Small stage — "Notes of a Madman" directed by Arina Bessergeneva.