The Death of Meyerhold

Some Notable Names

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  Vsevolod Meyerhold

  Russian theater producer, director, and actor who experimented in nonrealistic theater and rejected the naturalism of Stanislavsky. He was arrested in 1939 and executed in prison.

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  Stanislavsky

  Actor, director, and founder of the Moscow Art Theatre whose acting system forms the basis of modern realistic acting techniques.

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  Danchenko

  Director, playwright, and co-founder of the Moscow Art Theatre.

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  Chekhov

  Playwright whose work was made famous by the Moscow Art Theatre.

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  Lunacharsky

  Critic, playwright, and Soviet Commissariat of Enlightenment from 1917 until 1929.

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  Lenin

  Founder of Bolshevism and leader of Soviet Russia from the 1917 Revolution until his death in 1924.

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  Stalin

  Leader of the U.S.S.R. from 1924 until his death in 1953.

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  Trotsky

  Soviet revolutionary theoretician and a leader of the 1917 Revolution who was expelled from the Communist Party in 1927 for his opposition to Stalin’s policies. In 1929 he was exiled and moved to Mexico where he was murdered in 1940.

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  Mayakovsky

  Soviet poet and playwright who committed suicide in 1930.

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  Shostakovich

  Celebrated Russian composer whose music embraced the grotesque and satirical, and who lived under constant threat of censorship by the Soviet regime.

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  Zinaida Raikh

  Leading actress at Meyerhold’s theater, and also Meyerhold’s wife.

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  Maria Babanova

  Actress with Meyerhold’s theater from 1922 until 1927, at which point she went on to a separate and highly successful career at the Theatre of the Revolution, now the Mayakovsky Theatre.

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  Erast Garin

  Actor with Meyerhold’s theater, most famous for his portrayal of the title role in Meyerhold’s 1926 production of Gogol’s Inspector.

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  Igor Ilinsky

  Actor in Meyerhold’s theater who played many roles there and is known as one of Russia’s great comic actors.

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  The Group Theatre

  American theater company, established in New York in 1931 by Harold Clurman, Lee Strasberg, and Cheryl Crawford, which took the basis of its artistic inspiration from Stanislavsky and the Moscow Art Theatre. Other members of The Group, including Clifford Odets, Stella Adler, Sanford Meisner, and Elia Kazan, also went on to have a major impact on the American stage and screen.