Let's understand the secrets of the theater director's profession
10.09. 2016
In dramaturgy, non-stage characters are characters who do not appear on stage - other characters only talk about them. However, these “invisible heroes” can play a very serious role in the play. This is exactly the association that a theater director evokes. While viewers are accustomed to seeing actors, directors, and sometimes artists and composers taking their bows, the work of the theater director always “remains behind the scenes.” Our material is dedicated to that invisible hand that controls the “theater orchestra”. His hero is RAMT director Sofya Apfelbaum.
– Sofya Mikhailovna, yours professional biography You have always been connected with the theater. You graduated from a theater university, but why didn’t you become an artist, as all girls dream, and decided to become a theater manager?
– I wouldn’t say that all girls dream of acting career. If you look at the contingent of production faculties theater institutes, then these are mostly girls. People come there who, on the one hand, are interested in art, and on the other, a synthesis of economics, law, and production.
– At the production department of RATI-GITIS, do they teach you how to be the head of a cultural institution?
– No matter how trivial it may sound, they can hardly teach this there. Naturally, practitioners teach, but no one becomes a director immediately after graduating from university. To run a theatre, you need life and professional experience. This in itself even sounds challenging: “I want to be a theater director!” Training goes through management, starting from the lowest level. Already in the first or second year, students go to practice in theaters and work at festivals. A person himself must go through all the steps of organizing a theater business in order to understand how the system works. I came to practice at the Moscow Art Theater and stayed there to work in parallel with my studies. Nothing supernatural, everyone does it.
– What are you doing today as a theater director? What are your responsibilities and powers?
– To answer this question, you need to immediately clarify that there are two main models of theater management.
The first is unity of command, when there is one person at the head: either the artistic director or the director. He bears full responsibility for the theater: both for the artistic component and for the organization, economics, roof repairs and everything else.
The second model, from the point of view of modern legislation, is not entirely correct, but, nevertheless, it is used in many theaters. In particular, in all Moscow ones. With this model, there is a division of powers between the artistic director and the director. The artistic director deals exclusively with creativity. The director is responsible for organizational issues and economics. The union of Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko is often remembered as a classic example of such a model. Although in fact Stanislavsky understood economics very well, and Nemirovich-Danchenko was a director and author of many plays. It is believed that the separation of artistic and organizational principles increases work efficiency, although it is often accompanied by conflicts.
In the provinces, the director's theater model is more common, when the director is the main one, and he invites the main director. But, according to theorists, this is not very effective for creative development. Whatever one may say, even if we all think that we understand art, creative people should be at the head of the creative team.
Our theater is headed by an artistic director. According to the Charter, he has full powers. But in fact, the artistic director delegates to the director all issues related to the organization. And it’s great that Alexey Vladimirovich ( A.V. Borodin, artistic director of RAMT - approx. ed.) takes over the most the hard part related to determining the repertoire, working with artists, selecting creative personnel, and so on, since it is not enough to think in terms of efficiency, as the director does. Very important artistic vision, the instinct that Alexey Vladimirovich has.
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You touched a lot interesting question– effective management. In essence, the theater lives by the same financial laws as an oil company. But talking about efficiency, meaning theatrical art, is difficult. How do you find a compromise between creative success and financial? How can you not forget about art when thinking about profit?
– Of course, just as an oil company not only pumps oil, but also represents a team where it is necessary to establish relationships, so we, too, are not only engaged in art: we also need to sell tickets, ensure the occupancy of the hall, fulfill the indicators that are required of us, to pay salaries, make repairs, etc. In general, there is something in common between us. But we treat non-profit organizations, for us, profit and increase in income is not the main indicator - this is the difference. Although this is a bad cover that “we are only doing art, please don’t touch us with your numbers.”
– Theater is a cultural institution. Does the word stability apply to it? Which of its components can and should be stable, and how can this stability be maintained?
– We have a repertory theater. This is what in Italian would be called "stazionario". And in America there is the concept of “stationary theater”. That is, these are not one-time little theaters: they gathered, played, and ran away - which, in general, is natural for creative process. In our case there is stability. However, we are also affected by the situation in the country and economic fluctuations. We feel this because we receive budget funding, which depends, among other things, on oil. However, we belong to a group of privileged theaters, and therefore we have some consistency.
– I understand correctly that main problem theater director - where to find money? How do you forecast the theater budget? and what does it consist of?
– We have budget funding, it is not too large, but, thank God, it is not being reduced at the same rate as it could.
– Who determines the size? The state, or is there a request from the theater?
– Some time ago the system changed, I left federal law No. 83, which introduced the concept of a state task. But for the theater, in essence, not much has changed. So the Ministry of Culture announced that now money is given per viewer. And before they gave us to performances. This year we were actually given funding, which is broken down by the number of viewers, but the amount did not change. The standard has been calculated.
Budget financing is a matter of availability of funds. If the state more money, then funding can be increased. Although in practice it is difficult.
A big positive trend emerged when Presidential grants for largest theaters, musical institutions, educational institutions. In 2016, a list was published containing 83 organizations. Our theater is included in this list. This, of course, helps a lot. Plus, since 2012, by presidential decree, money has been allocated to increase wages, this also increases our funding.
– What funds does the theater have, besides the state budget?
- Everything we earn. Selling tickets is the main line, plus we provide the venue for rent when possible. For example, in the summer our theater hosts “Ballet Seasons”, since we have the necessary space and an orchestra pit. In general, the RAMT building is an opera and ballet theater. There are also small items such as selling software, but this is all insignificant.
– Do you submit reports on the number of spectators to the Ministry?
– We are submitting a lot of reports now. How many spectators, what is the average ticket price, how many performances. Based on these data, the same financing standard is drawn up.
– If the state allocates to the theater budget funds, can it dictate a certain strategy of behavior, the content of the repertoire?
- No, there is no such thing. This is determined by Russian legislation on culture. Now our state task looks like this: we must serve 125 thousand spectators.
Does the government intervene? This is a problem for all youth theaters. When Natalya Ilyinichna Sats created the Moscow Theater for Children, its goal was to work for children and youth audiences. But the question arises of how the theater can exist in this situation, because there are artists who need creative development. They cannot play the same roles all their lives. This was the case in Soviet times, and even now sometimes strange demands appear: “What do you do? You should school curriculum show it to the children so that they don’t read to them, but come and have a look.” This happens very often in provincial theaters. Teachers come and say: “Give us the school curriculum.” This is a very simplified view of what theater for children and youth should do.
Although it is necessary to clarify here that we are the only federally run drama theater aimed at youth audiences, we do not yet have such problems. We don't feel control.
– You have already said that the artistic director is involved in the artistic component, but as a director, are you involved in the selection of the repertoire?
– We are discussing how many performances need to be staged on the main stage per year, and whether it is possible to stage them simultaneously on small stages. We look at the possibilities of the theater. I solve mainly organizational issues; and the repertoire policy is determined by the artistic director. Another question is that sometimes some insurmountable obstacles arise. Let's say we are talking about a foreign play for which we need rights. Here, as a director, I can say: “No, we won’t be able to stage this now,” because either it is not possible to acquire the rights, or the rights holders impose too many conditions.
– Do you think about how the performance will be sold? How economically successful is it? Does this go against creativity?
– This is the main dilemma. It is very rare for a truly significant, artistic revelation and its popularity among viewers to be successfully combined. For example, if we take the Art Theater, then everyone’s favorite play “The Seagull” was not commercially successful. Compared to the first performance “Tsar Fyodor Ioannovich”, on which the theater lived, “The Seagull” was a kind of experiment, a movement forward.
In my opinion, the repertoire should include both box office performances and those that move theaters forward, even though they are not so commercially successful. We try to maintain this balance. Nowadays, people are accustomed only to having fun in the theater, and our performance “Electra’s Fate” requires effort and work from the viewer. It cannot be said that it is a box office success, but, nevertheless, we are preserving this performance. It allows us to maintain a high artistic level. If we talk about a project theater (like on Broadway), then they simply film the play there if it doesn’t go on. However, in repertory theater it is not necessary that the premiere will be successful. Recognition may come in a year or even two: you can let the performance develop. This is an absolutely amazing feature of repertory theater.
– By the way, about premieres. Do you think the number of premieres produced is an indicator of the theater’s success?
– Usually this question is raised by the Ministry of Culture when assessing the effectiveness of the theater. But the theater community is resisting, since quantitative indicators in the case of art do not indicate effectiveness.
Of course, when there are new works, this is an indicator of development. Otherwise the theater will not survive. However, “Juno and Avos” is already more than thirty years go by. Isn't this an indicator that he - good performance, can it withstand heat for thirty years? The “Extraordinary Concert” at the Obraztsov Theater is 70 years old, not to mention the play “The Blue Bird” at the Moscow Art Theater. If we formulate the position of our theater, we believe that there should be many premieres, despite economic difficulties.
– What is more profitable for the theater from an economic point of view: to keep long-lived performances or to stage new performances?
- If you take small town- everything is clear there. The audience is exhausted - we need it new repertoire. IN big city you can afford to support old performance if it goes well. It's cost-effective. But a period inevitably comes when the performance becomes morally obsolete, the artists seem to grow out of it: each performance has its own age. As for new productions, today this is a big expense for the theater, but without them the theater will not develop.
Here it is necessary to clarify that the concept of “umbrella marketing” is applicable to the theater. We promote not only each new performance, but also the theater as a brand as a whole. The question is who is attracted to whom. Does the name of the theater ensure the success of the performance or does the performances that become brands bring the theater to new level confessions? And here we need to choose a strategy: either we promote the theater as a brand, or individual performances through which the theater is recognized.
– What is RAMT’s strategy?
– In our theater, each performance has its own story. For example, the audience of the play “Flowers for Algernon” stayed in the theater after the performance. But with children's performances it's the other way around: the brand has more influence. Spectators know that RAMT has good children's performances. Or the same “Coast of Utopia”: now an eight-hour performance is our brand. And at first it was a completely unknown play, to which only experts came. Of course, there are surges in the box office due to the media exposure of our artists. For example, this was the case after the release of the series “Don’t Be Born Beautiful.” But we are not chasing such glory. RAMT is not one of those theaters that expects a media artist to come and do everything for us. We are called a youth theater not only because of our audience, but also because of our creative staff: middle age our artists do not exceed thirty years of age. This means that by definition we cannot have stars.
– What criteria does the theater follow when filming a performance?
– Now we have the task of updating the children's line-up of performances as part of the “Young Directors for Children” project. At first, four performances were released on the chamber stage, and we don’t stop there. We understand that we need new content for modern children, a completely different level of production. Children's performances in the traditional sense are matinees where classes sit with tickets for 100 rubles. We have a completely different approach: it is very important that children come with their parents, so that adults will also be interested. Among our new productions are Deniska's Stories and Edward the Rabbit. They differ significantly both in design and visuals from traditional children's performances.
As for the adult repertoire, last year our artist tragically died. It was decided to film some performances so as not to introduce new actors into them. Our theater generally has very few replacements. If one person rehearses, then he plays it.
A lot of things again come down to finances. Storing decorations and transporting them is very expensive. There are not enough rooms in the theater - they need to rent. In addition, a repertoire of 50 performances is a lot. I don’t know if there is any other drama theater in Moscow that has so many names in its repertoire. Maybe at the Maly Theater, at the Moscow Art Theater... Nowadays a system borrowed from musical theaters, when performances are performed in blocks once every six months or a year, and then they go to a warehouse. And our 50 performances never leave the stage.
– Since the theater is a large factory that produces a product in the form of performances, this product must be sold. To what extent in this matter the theater is on Does it keep up with the times and take advantage of new advances in sales marketing?
– We are trying to monitor and implement new things that appear in this area. We have special programs that help track our sales online. We recently introduced our online ticket sales. In fact, there are not many distribution channels, but we will not refuse any. Even from traditional ones that have remained since Soviet times.
– Do you mean ticket distributors?
– Yes, they work for our theater too. But obviously, over time, everything will go to online sales.
There is also a lot in this system now different offers. For example, aggressive marketing. I don’t know how right this is for the theater: a person will buy a ticket from us, and we will start bombarding him with a wild number of offers. Although, on the other hand, there will be nothing wrong with this if this person loves our theater and is interested in it. Why don't we then tell him that we are having a promotion or a premiere? There should probably be a question of moderation in this too. If you buy our ticket on the City Ticket Office portal, you will then be sent notifications about RAMT news. But we don’t do this, the cash desk does this. But is it necessary for the theater to act just as actively and aggressively?
– Do you focus on the experience of other theaters or go your own way in matters of marketing?
– Of course, we look around, because it’s stupid to isolate the theater and not pay attention to other people’s successful decisions. Another question is that what is successfully used in other theaters is not always suitable for us. But in some ways, I know for sure, we are better and ahead of other theaters. And somewhere they are focusing on us, which is nice.
– Despite the fact that you occupy a rather pragmatic position - you are forced to deal with money, solve material issues - do you consider yourself a person of art?
– I would like to consider and think that you also have something to do with the creative process. But, nevertheless, it is necessary to distinguish between these two spheres. It happens that directors consider themselves people of art - and this is dangerous in its own way. Because you can start to think that you know and understand this better than others. And since you are endowed with power, this will not lead to good results. I think everyone should mind their own business.
– What is the director’s routine? What issues do you have to solve during the day? The actors' working day ends after the performance, but when does it end for you?
– It starts at 10 o’clock in the morning, and it can end, like with actors, at 10 pm. This is the specificity of the work. The entire organizational and economic block works until 18:00. And everything that concerns the creative part is in the evening. That's why the director gets such a dimensionless working day.
– Are you able to partially delegate your powers?
- Necessarily. The director controls the following blocks: organizational and economic (accounting, lawyers, personnel department), work with the audience, production, production of performances, storage of scenery. This is the standard scheme. As in any management, 7 people must directly report to the director. It's the same in the theater.
– Are there any responsibilities that you cannot delegate to anyone and why?
– Unfortunately, the theater is structured in such a way that many issues cannot be delegated. Much is manual control. In theory, if everything works correctly, then on tour, for example, a director is not needed, but...
– ... Do you still travel with the theater?
- It depends on the tour. If they are well-worn, when everything is more or less clear, then no. The work of the director is important at the preparatory stage: to decide, agree, decide which group will go. In my opinion, if a director runs around and frantically tries to do something on tour, this just speaks of an unregulated structure. I'm trying to fight this.
– Do you consider yourself a strict leader?
“I want to think so, but I can’t.” No, I don't think so.
– Do people of art need any special approach? If so, which one?
– Of course, this is a special area. Let’s say that in the matter of selecting artists and creating a performance, it is important that an authoritative artistic director be at the head. If you direct the artists only to the director, and the directors are visiting ones, then this, as a rule, does not give a creative effect.
– In addition to producing performances, RAMT carries out large number other projects aimed at audiences and theater specialists. Are new projects and programs at RAMT launched from above or implemented on the initiative of employees? Which main criterion why do you give the go-ahead to the project?
– You need to understand that RAMT special story, pedagogical work has been carried out here since Soviet times. Now it has been transformed in accordance with the present day and is being carried out very actively. We have spectator clubs that engage in educational projects, teach children how to watch a play, teach them theatrical language and explain that a play is not an illustration.
Initiatives appear in different ways: some are proposed by employees, some come from outside: for example, the Ministry proposed to work with regional Youth Theaters at RAMT. But it’s better when everything is born naturally.
Tatiana Popadyeva
Theater is an integral system functioning simultaneously in three forms: as a form of art, as social institution, like production. Each of these hypostases has its own goal, which does not completely coincide with the goals of the other two. At the same time, to achieve this goal, the combination and interaction of all three components is necessary.
Theater as art Its goal is the self-expression of the artist-creator, the development of the performing arts itself. However, in the act of stage creativity, the creation of a work of art and its “consumption” are inseparable from each other, i.e. without an audience it will not take place. Consequently, the viewer - part of society - is a full participant in this creative act. The act of stage creativity is also inseparable from other organizational components of the theater, from material resources, i.e. from production.
Theater as a social institution performs important socially significant functions: satisfaction and formation of spiritual and aesthetic needs, educational, cognitive, recreational functions... For this it is important to know and constantly study this society itself, its interests and demands. However, the logic of the development of art requires constant search, trial and error, and experimentation. All this does not always entail audience success, which means that we do not always see a coincidence of the interests of the artist and his audience.
Theater as production is the organizational and material side of the creative process. Commercial success and the success of the theater play an important role here. It is obvious that theater as a production also conflicts with experimental searches theatrical arts, and with the idea of public accessibility (read - low prices for tickets).
For the theater system to function, it is necessary to find stability mechanism , coordination, reasonable compromise between all three of its hypostases. The history of the theater, including the Soviet period, is full of dramatic collisions of artistic and production interests, conflicts between the main directors and theater directors, between the acting troupe and its artistic director.
Division of powers in the theater
If we consider organizational structure theater (Fig. 19.1), we will clearly see two complementary parts: creative-production and administrative-economic, for which the artistic director and director are responsible.
The ideal, at first glance, seems to be a simple division of powers between the director and artistic director, ensuring the coexistence and interaction of these parts of the theater. However, even the example of the relationship of such impeccably devoted and deeply decent people as K. S. Stanislavsky and Vl. I. Nemirovich-Danchenko, shows the unreliability of dual power in the theater.
Historical excursion
Already in 1911, 13 years after the founding of the Moscow Art Theater, Nemirovich-Danchenko became the head of the theater. As managing director, he "transferred the final word from the hands of the board into the hands of one person, who has the opportunity to listen to the advice of others, but must decide for himself what in this advice falls within the realm of prudence and what is in the realm of harmful or unfounded mistrust." .
Regulations on the theater in Russian Federation, adopted in 1999, provides for two forms of theater management:
on the basis of unity of command - when the founder (bodies executive branch) concludes employment contract or with the director, or with the artistic director;
based on the division of areas of competence - when the founder enters into agreements with both.
We can observe the existence of two equal leadership positions in the theater, for example, in Great Britain - a country with long theatrical traditions. Part Russian theaters also chose this path. But practice shows that both in Great Britain and in Russia this path is inevitably fraught with conflicts - obvious or hidden.
The problem is that in the theater the main figure, of course, is the creative leader - the director, who has his own artistic program and knows how to rally a team of like-minded actors around him. Possessing complete power in the theater would be the most justified and convenient for him and for everyone. But the trouble is that such complete power requires that the director delve into all the practical, and not just the creative, issues of the theater. This requires, firstly, his competence in these practical matters, and secondly, it distracts him from creative matters. Such “spraying” dilutes its potential and ultimately leads to losses in what is most important - in art.
Figure 19.1.
The director has full power - if he is not a creative person, but a person from the “nomenklatura” (as often happened in Soviet times), considering his post only as an attribute high position in society - there is, in essence, the same dual power, where one of the leaders has an official, the other - an unofficial status. The farther the director is from the artistic ideas that inspire the director and actors, the more possible and even natural a conflict between them is.
- Nemirovich-Danchenko Vl. AND. Selected letters: in 2 volumes. T. 2. M., 1979. P. 81.
Born on October 11, 1954 in the city of Tbilisi, where his parents, circus performers, were on tour.
Father - People's Artist of the USSR Yuri Vladimirovich Durov, mother - People's Artist of Uzbekistan Lola Khodzhaeva.
He first entered the arena at the age of six in his father’s attraction. And since then he has continued to work in the circus. In a mixed group of animals led by his father, Yuri's first pets were a young elephant, a chimpanzee and a mathematician dog.
At the age of 14, he completely replaced his father for the first time, becoming the head of the attraction, since Yuri Vladimirovich Durov was busy filming the film “Liberation”, where he played the role of Winston Churchill.
In 1971, while on tour in Belgium, Yuri Vladimirovich Durov died suddenly. And since then, Yuri Yuryevich stood at the head of the family circus attraction and, having significantly altered the act, worked with him until 1978.
Then he left for a rehearsal period and in two years created a fundamentally new attraction, “Everything in the World.” In it, for the first time in the history of the Russian circus, a giraffe entered the arena.
Several unique signature tricks were performed with sea lions. And also a unique number “Cheetahs on the loose”, where two predators worked in the arena without a cage, without leashes, without collars. To today no one can repeat this number.
For more than forty years of work, I traveled (more than once) to all the circuses of the former Soviet Union, went on tour in Japan. In France he worked for two years at the French National Circus.
Multi-trainer. Dozens of animal species have passed through the trainer's rooms: sea lions, chimpanzees, cheetahs, zebras, kangaroos, pigeons, elephants, bears, dogs, ponies, foxes, parrots.
As the head of the internship practice, director and scriptwriter, he prepared a number for Farida Yakubov, who later became a laureate of the Lenin Komsomol Prize: a number with trained monkeys, which was called “Monkey’s Labor”. In addition to monkeys, dogs and ponies took part in it.
For four years he was the head of the internship practice of the Honored Artist of Russia Boris Maykhrovsky - a number with sea animals. For many years he led a stable circus program - a team that involved more than seventy people.
He staged performances at the Moscow Circus on Tsvetnoy Boulevard and in many circuses in Russia.
Maintains friendly relations with Andrei Makarevich, Pyotr Podgorodetsky, Alexander Kutikov and other members of the Time Machine group, Leonid Yarmolnik, Stanislav Sadalsky.
He studied circus art from outstanding luminaries of the Soviet circus: Karandash, Igor Kio, Yuri Nikulin, Mikhail Shuidin, Zaven Martirosyan, Irina Bugrimova.
He married Vera Dmitrievna Buslenko in 1975, at that time an artist in the attraction of the illusionist Emil Kio. In 1988, their daughter Natalya was born.
Prizes and awards for working in the company "ROSGOSTIRK":
Since 1992 - Honored Artist of the Russian Federation.
Since 2007 - People's Artist Russian Federation.
Since 2006 - Academician of the International Academy of Spiritual Unity of the Peoples of the World.
In 2001 he was awarded the Grand Prix of the Moscow Nikulin Circus on Tsvetnoy Boulevard.
In 2002 he received the "Circus" award among professionals of the International Academy of Circus Arts and the award of the Russian Circus Company.
In 2004 he received the International Prize of the Moscow Circus on Vernadsky Avenue.
* In 2006, he was awarded the Order of Peter the Great, 1st degree, and the Silver Order of Merit for Russian Art.
Prizes and awards for work
in the State Budgetary Institution of Culture of Moscow "Theater "Grandfather Durov's Corner":
2007 – awarded the title “People’s Artist of the Russian Federation” for his work
in the company "Rosgostsirk" as a multi-trainer.
2009 – Medal of the Ministry of Emergency Situations “For the Commonwealth in the Name of Salvation.”
2012 – Award of the Union of Circus Workers of Russia “Best Director of the Year” for the play “The Queen’s New Year’s whim.”
2012 – winner of the “Best Employer in Moscow” competition.
2012 - Grand Prix winner for the number with elephants on international festival circus
in Izhevsk, awarding the title “Honored Worker of Culture of Udmurtia.”
2013 – winner of the “Best Employer in Moscow” competition.
2014 – laureate of the Moscow Government Prize for employees of state cultural institutions in Moscow as part of the Year of Culture in the Russian Federation in the nomination “For contribution to the development of culture”
For saving historical heritage Russia and the memory of its heroes, as the leader of the project, was awarded a diploma of the historical and literary award "Alexander Nevsky".
IN lately In our theater, the figure of the director is increasingly coming to the fore: decisions of the Ministry of Culture, according to which all power over the Bolshoi Theater is concentrated in the hands of the director, only confirmed this situation. And Izvestia decided to figure out what the director’s omnipotence gives the theater - is it good or bad and where it can lead.
Conversation with the one who reigns and rules
Felix DEMICHEV - director of the Moscow drama theater named after Stanislavsky. This theater has been living without a chief director for a long time, and Felix Demichev rules it with a firm hand: he forms a team, determines the repertoire policy, and invites directors. He began his conversation about the role of the director in today's theater like this:
A director can be the artistic director of a theater if he is well trained, educated, has artistic flair and organizational skills. If the directors performing the role of artistic directors cope with their responsibilities, then they are in the right place.
I have been working as the director of the Stanislavsky Theater for fifteen years and have always been with the main directors. The fact is that I have no creative ambitions, but the director - artistic director of the theater always has them. The result is obvious: a significant number of Moscow theaters, headed by respected ones who have done a lot for art people, died a long time ago. This happened because the main directors - artistic directors Young directors are not allowed into them.
So there are dead theaters around Moscow, where everything seems to be in order: there is a director, there is also a chief director who acts as artistic director... But there is no life in them. And the director is always focused on the success of the theater.
The director-manager at the head of the theater will not allow anything bad and will not interfere with anything good. A director who knows his business and loves theater will also reveal a lot.
But the Russian theater of the twentieth century arose as an author's theater - the main directors create troupes in their own image and likeness. What happens when a director is at the head of the theater?
It’s good when an artistic director like Georgy Aleksandrovich Tovstonogov is at the head of the theater. But which of the main directors - artistic directors of theaters can you put next to him today? And the director who heads the theater seems to me personally to be an enlightened monarch - he gives performances to a variety of directors belonging to other directions and does not divide them into friends and foes, into representatives of the school close to him and everyone else. There are talented and untalented - that's all, and I don't let the latter into the Stanislavsky Theater.
The director-manager creates a different theater model, and it has its advantages. We have such a strange and super-talented person working for us as Pyotr Mamonov - he is now doing his fourth project. Good conditions have been created for him here, he can show all his creative possibilities, that’s why Mamonov does not leave the Stanislavsky Theater. We are not directors of Soviet times, when people ran bath and laundry factories, and then they were thrown into theaters. Your humble servant graduated from the Department of Economics and Theater Organization of the Theater Studies Faculty of GITIS, and came to the theater many years ago and began as a stagehand... I know and love theater and creative people I don't dictate anything.
Theater directors are specific people - they know that the product their theaters create must be in demand by the consumer. Tickets must be sold, performances must pay for themselves.
Payback is a good thing, but theater cannot be reduced to it alone. Look at our repertoire: how could two of Mirzoev’s Shakespearean projects become hits? He staged his “Khlestakov” with us when “The Inspector General” was showing nearby, at the Pushkin Theater, where they played very famous artists. Now young Viktor Shamirov is staging “Masquerade” with Sergei Shakurov in leading role: he convinced me that today we need to do a poetic, romantic performance.
A director can destroy a theater - just like another director - an artistic director. But directors can lead theaters - all world experience speaks to this. And I fully support Shvydkoy’s decisions regarding the Bolshoi Theater.
Director's opinion
Sergei ZHENOVACH is one of today's most gifted directors; he has extensive experience in communicating with theater directors. Not long ago he was the chief director of the Moscow Theater on Malaya Bronnaya and left it after a conflict with the director, the most experienced and intelligent Ilya Kogan. He assesses the current situation, when directors manage several Moscow theaters (drama - Stanislavsky and on Malaya Bronnaya, Operetta Theater), and government decrees related to the Bolshoi Theater make this situation legitimate, as follows:
The talent of a theater director is as unique as the talent of an actor or director, or the talent of a stage designer. The director must be a talented organizer, but this is not even the main thing - he needs to love the artist. And if he has this quality, he will never take on artistic direction: a good director does not direct the director, but serves his artistic idea. Best periods Russian director's theater are associated with those times when the director was next to the director - as soon as he stood above him, everything in the theater fell apart. Wise theater directors themselves understand this, but, unfortunately, they are becoming less and less common.
The directors justify their right to the throne by the fact that now “there are no artistic leaders.” This is a deep misconception - directors are not born theater leaders, but become them. We need to help young directors feel their strength - and for this we need a director who is ready to serve the artistic endeavor.
What is happening now is destroying nature itself modern theater. The director at the head of the troupe does not always have artistic idea. Powerful creative personalities they are not important to him, because he needs to work with them - it is much easier to take some cheap play, invite an easy-going and compliant person to stage it, who is confident that he can direct... So we are losing the theater, which is the same part cultures such as literature, music and philosophy. In our country, it is increasingly turning into a show - and this trend, it seems to me, is terrible.
Directors claim that they invite different directors to productions and as a result, everything goes wrong in their theaters... This is another misconception: I can’t imagine a troupe consisting of such universal artists with whom directors professing different beliefs could work. theatrical styles. Who, may I ask, will educate these artists? We are talking about the Tovstonogov acting school, about the school of Lyubimov and Efros... These were THEIR actors, it was THEY who made them.
Having grown old, leading directors often do not allow young people into their theaters. But who said that theaters should live for forty to fifty years? Theater arises when a director's idea appears, and then, when after five, seven, ten years it is exhausted, something else must arise... But theater can only develop around a director: otherwise it is a production factory that has nothing to do with art. performances.
- But smart directors refer to commercial success.
The Russian theater has never worked for success. It’s great when it exists, but you don’t have to put it at the forefront and achieve it at any cost... If the theater relies on box office receipts, a smart and intelligent person will turn away from it - he will feel that the stage panders to base passions. Moscow art theater to your early period I didn't think about the box office. The halls were not always full; in the first years, only “Tsar Fyodor Ioannovich” did the gatherings.
You cannot isolate yourself and leave the audience - theater exists for people. But not everyone reads Rilke and Tyutchev, not everyone listens to Mozart, but Rilke and Mozart don’t get any worse for it. And all this is called “culture”. If theater does not appeal to the best that is in people, if it does not make a person human, does not cultivate in him best qualities- then why is it needed at all? Then the scene turns into stupid buffoonery - people walk around and make faces, earning their little money. And here is the result: young, interesting playwrights have stopped appearing in our country, classical texts are no longer revealed unexpectedly and sharply, and there is a crisis in scenography.
And therefore the director has the theoretical right
The artistic director of the Lenkom Theater works relying on the director, but Mark ZAKHAROV owns all the technologies for success himself. He knows the value of both creativity and theater organization. Zakharov is wise, and he summed up this correspondence debate as follows:
In any creative work (including theater), a lot determines individuality. Several decades ago, an outstanding theater director worked in Moscow, whom young people no longer remember: Konstantin Izonovich Shakh-Azizov headed the Central Children's Theater and managed to organize a powerful directorial core, which included Tovstonogov, Efros, Fomenko, where Knebel worked. For some time, the CDT became a hotbed of new theatrical ideas - and it was led by a director. In the West, theaters are often run by directors. And often - humanists, university graduates, philologists, strong managers, playwrights... I would not say that all the main directors - artistic directors of theaters do not allow young people into their homes. This is also very individual: now I am doing another experiment with my student Roman Samgin. This season he is staging Fletcher’s comedy “The Taming of the Tamer” absolutely independently, without my support.
There are bad directors - artistic directors of theaters, and there are bad directors... But the director - our theater community found out quite recently - is a rare profession. We didn’t think so before - every theater was supposed to have a chief director who, at the very least, staged production plays (this was required of us by the censorship apparatus). And now it turned out that there are few directors. There is a terrible shortage of directors who can run theatre. Therefore, a serious, intelligent, highly educated manager has the theoretical right to manage a theater.
P.S. Our theater lives in two time dimensions: the Soviet one - with its strict division of powers, authoritarian (and sometimes simply boorish) style of relationships between superiors and subordinates, the tutelage of the ministry, budgetary funding - and today, where there are a lot of its own charms. You have to work hard, you have to work so that spectators come to the theater, you have to earn money, you have to keep up with your colleagues in the competition... And good directors They meet less and less often, they don’t really want to manage theaters - and then the directors take them into their hands, overworked with administration. But the problem is not limited to Moscow: similar processes are taking place in the provinces; The Ministry of Culture probably also has its own point of view on what is happening... We put an end to the material, but do not close the topic: this problem is long overdue and the newspaper will return to it.
At least fourteen theaters in 2013–2017 concluded more than 60 contracts totaling more than 97 million rubles with their own managers as individuals or individual entrepreneurs. Theaters hired their own artistic directors as actors and directors, and also rented space and props from them for productions.
Thus, the director of Helikon Opera, Dmitry Bertman, received an average of approximately 440 thousand rubles from his theater. for staging one performance, the head of the Pushkin Theater Evgeny Pisarev - 480 thousand rubles each, the head of the Theater in the South-West Oleg Leushin - 180 thousand rubles each, the head of the Gogol Center Kirill Serebrennikov - 345 thousand rubles each. For acting in their theaters, Oleg Tabakov and Oleg Menshikov earned more than 600 thousand per month, Nadezhda Babkina - 520 thousand per month.
Yuri Kuklachev concluded two contracts for the rental of premises with his own son for 3.76 million rubles, and Pavel Slobodkin rented the premises of his theater and concert center for two years from a company in which he owns a 50% share for 38.6 million rubles. At the same time, they all continued to receive the salary of artistic directors of state theaters.
As a rule, deals were signed on behalf of the theater by deputy artistic directors. It is obvious that they depend on their immediate superiors and cannot make decisions contrary to their interests. This means that this does not free theater managers from conflicts of interest.
All contracts are concluded on a non-alternative basis - with a single supplier. The rationale for the contract stated that the artistic directors of theaters are better than others in being able to stage performances and perform roles in them.
Individual entrepreneur Evgeny Pisarev performs in a play directed by Evgeny Pisarev (photo from the Pushkin Theater website)
In addition, it seems difficult to verify the fact of approval: hypothetically, theater managers can approve transactions in the department of culture retroactively after receiving a request from the prosecutor's office to provide documents on transactions.
For example, the play “Green Zone” by Evgeny Marcelli was shown before approval from the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation.