The Republican Puppet Theatre
The official date of the Republican Puppet Theater’s opening is considered May 1942. Although the Theater began working a little earlier as a creative team. G. Kryzhitsky, chief director of the Drama Theater, was at the origin of the puppet troupe. Originally the Theater actors played short puppet plays during intermissions. Many enthusiastic actors were so much engaged with the new business so gradually they learned the art of puppetry and began to create performances for children. For many years the Theater team didn’t have its own building. The troupe traveled to haytheatre regions of the Mari El Republic performing in kindergartens, schools and rural clubs. Today the Puppet Theater is a modern theater building where good performances for children and adults are played. The repertoire has a huge amount of performances based on children’s classics. The construction of a new building for the Republican Puppet Theater began in 2010. The total area of the new Theater – 10,000 sq. meters. The Theater provides space for puppet manufacture workshops.
The Youth Theater of Mari El
The Youth Theater of Mari El was established in 1991. Today the repertoire of the Theater includes about 35 performances for adults, children and youth in the Mari and in the Russian language as well. The Theater repertoire is based on the works of the national drama classics – Sergei Nikolayev, Mayorov-Shketan; the Russian classics – Anton Chekhov, Alexander Ostrovsky, Alexei Tolstoy, Maxim Gorkiy. From the first days the Theater cooperates with playwrights of modern Russian literature – A.Arbuzov, N.Kolyada, S.Lobozerov, L. Petrushevskaya and others. The modern Mari drama is presented with the Mari plays by M.Rybakov, V.Abukaev-Emgak, Z.Dolgova, V.Domrachev, G.Gordeev, K.Korshunov, A. Petrov, V.Sapaev, I.Fadeev. The foreign drama – the works by M.Orr, R.Denem, S.Tsanev, Eduardo De Filippo.
Eric Sapaev Mari State Opera and Ballet Theatre
The Theater was established in 1968. The Theater repertoire consists of more than 50 works of opera, ballet and operetta classics, performances for children. From its first years the Theater works fruitfully with Mari composers. Currently, the two national operas are included to the repertoire – “Akpatyr” by Eric Sapayev and “Aldiar” by Elina Arkhipova and a ballet “The Forest Legend”, music by Anatoly Luppov. Every year the Theater holds huge festivals that became significant events in the cultural life of the region. They are the opera and ballet festival “The Winter Nights” and the ballet art festival in honor of Galina Ulanova. The festival participants are soloists of the Mari State Opera and Ballet Theatre, the leading singers of the Bolshoi Theatre, the Mariinsky Theatre, the Kremlin Ballet group, Russian and foreign cities ballet dancers.
Konstantinov Academic Russian Drama Theater
Konstantinov Academic Russian Drama Theater works in Yoshkar-Ola from 1919. In the beginning a Russian theater troupe was created on the basis of Kazan provincial executive committee regulation and worked at the Mari theatre. In 1937 the Russian-language troupe opened its theater season independently. Konstantinov Academic Russian Drama Theater has always been a part of the multinational culture of the Republic of Mari El and now it introduces the audience with the best of Russian and foreign, classical and modern drama..