Thursday, October 6, 2016 • 4 PM • Center for Russian Culture
MIKHAIL BYCHKOV, widely known in the Russian performing arts community as the founder of the Voronezh Chamber Theater and the International Platonov Festival, was chosen this year as chair of the jury for the Golden Mask National Theater Prize, Russia’s equivalent of the Tonys, in recognition of his contributions to Russian theater.
In the words of John Freedman, the most authoritative observer of contemporary Russian theater scene, Bychkov transformed a one-room basement affair into a "spectacular new multi-purpose building in the center of Voronezh that not only turns out ground-breaking theater but also serves as a major meeting place for art, artists and art consumers from all over Russia.” Bychkov's perspective on the place of Russian theater in the cultural transformation that has taken place over the past quarter of a century is especially valuable because he has played a leading role in shaping and developing theater in Russia’s regions, which is where the visionary theater-makers of the New Russian Drama movement have come from, and which are now viewed, in Moscow and Petersburg as incubators of the most far-reaching cultural experimentation.
