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In your repertoire
City Hall officials decided to give advice to theater masters
In Moscow, even the theater begins with the mayor's office. At yesterday's meeting of the city government, officials, who apparently also want to become famous as patrons of high art, decided to measure the “creative tone” of the city’s repertory theaters and point out to the managers of stage venues the need to more actively attract young people. The appearance on the agenda of the capital’s mayor’s office of the resolution “On measures to further improve work with creative youth in order to preserve and develop the capital’s repertory theater” somewhat excuses the fact that the weekly meeting was not entirely traditional. As is known, after the reappointment of Yuri Luzhkov to the position of mayor, all city ministers are considered acting, and mainly understudies from the so-called youth government took part in the discussion.But the head of the city’s culture department, Sergei Khudyakov, apparently prepared quite seriously and offered recipes for “pouring new wine into old wineskins.” In particular, his department considers it necessary to support new youth studios at the Pyotr Fomenko Workshop and the Moscow Drama Theater named after A.S. Pushkin. According to Mr. Khudyakov, it was with youth experimental studios that the traditional theater school began during the creative search of Konstantin Stanislavsky. “The first two studios, which will start working from the beginning of the new theater season, will become a revolutionary form and will determine the further direction of work with young actors,” the official assured.
The Department of Culture has already calculated the proportion of young (under 35 years old) actors in theater troupes and noted the “aging” trend. According to Mr. Khudyakov's calculations, out of 3,700 actors in Moscow repertory theaters, only 800 can be classified as youth - these are actors whose age is no more than 35 years. The official believes that it is possible to keep the troupe in “creative tone” when at least a third of it is constantly busy young performers, and not 15-20%, as now. And the young actors themselves need to be helped in getting the attention of the heads of large theater venues to pay attention to them. At the same time, Andrei Vorobyov, director of the Pyotr Fomenko Workshop theater, noted that actors can still find solace in passing roles and earn extra money in television series and commercials, but the situation of young directors is much more tragic - not a single sane artistic director will experiment and entrust the production to a newcomer .
However, not everyone liked the idea of creating “greenhouse conditions” for young actors. According to the actor of the Mossovet Theater, professor of the Russian Academy of Theater Arts (RATI) Evgeniy Steblov, even talents who have passed the creative competition demonstrate “stunning ignorance,” and young people in general show “a lack of elementary culture, a sense of proportion and understanding of the difference between the theater stage and the stage.” show business." Rector of the Higher School of Performing Arts at RATI Gennady Dadamyan also warned the authorities against interfering too closely in the theatrical environment. “The competition of artistic ideas is normal conditions for the development of art, and any monopoly leads to stagnation,” he tried to explain to officials.
The Moscow government's understudies, in turn, gained experience by asking questions to the speakers. But Yuri Luzhkov, who at times did not hide a skeptical smile, soon made it clear who had the last word in the capital. He sent the document prepared by the Department of Culture for revision, calling on his subordinates not to interfere in the politics of famous theaters, but to create open theater venues on the basis of cultural palaces and clubs.