Moscow Art Theater (MKhAT)

Moscow Art Theater (MKhAT) Review

One of Moscow's most historically important theaters, this performance space is renowned for its productions of the Russian classics, especially those of Anton Chekhov (1860-1904). Founded in 1898 by the celebrated actor and director Konstantin Stanislavsky (1863-1938) and playwright and producer Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko (1858-1943), the theater staged the first productions of Chekhov's and Maxim Gorky's (1868-1936) plays. It was here that Stanislavsky developed the Stanislavsky Method, based on the realism in traditional Russian theater. After the successful production of Chekhov's The Seagull (the first staging in St. Petersburg had bombed), the bird was chosen as the theater's emblem. An affiliated, more modern theater, with a seating capacity of 2,000, also confusingly called the Moscow Art Theater, was opened in 1972 on Tverskoi bulvar, near Stanislavsky's home. The mural opposite the old theater depicts Anton Chekhov, as does the statue at the start of Kamergersky pereulok.