Maly Drama Theatre — Theatre of Europe

The Maly Drama Theatre bears the honorary second name "Theatre of Europe" and is widely known as Lev Dodin's theatre; it is located in the centre of St Petersburg, not far from Vladimirskaya Square. It is one of only three drama companies in the world to hold the honorary status of "Theatre of Europe" — alongside the Odéon in Paris and the Piccolo Teatro in Milan. Since the early 2000s, its artistic director and general director has been Lev Dodin, whose name has shaped the company's creative identity for decades.

The theatre was founded in Leningrad in 1944 as a touring company of small forms: it had no building of its own, and the troupe gave performances in towns and villages of Leningrad Region. A permanent venue on what is now Rubinstein Street was allocated to the theatre only in 1956. A turning point for its repertoire came with the arrival, in 1973, of the director Yefim Padve, who committed the theatre to serious drama and invited young directors to join, among them Lev Dodin, a graduate of the Leningrad Institute of Theatre, Music and Cinematography.

The theatre's building was constructed in 1872 by the architect Vasily von Hecker for the silver and bronze goods factory of the merchants Zheverzheyev. In 1911 the architects Georgy Kosyakov and Vladimir Fridlein rebuilt the building for theatrical use, housing the Troitsky Theatre of Miniatures. Later a cinema and several drama companies worked here, until in 1956 the premises were handed over to the troupe that would later become the Maly Drama Theatre. Today the building is protected as an identified object of cultural heritage.

Dodin became chief director of the theatre in 1983; the productions that defined his reputation were "The House", based on Fyodor Abramov and awarded the USSR State Prize, and the epic staging of "Brothers and Sisters", which brought the company international recognition. In 1988 the production "Stars in the Morning Sky", shown at the Riverside Studios in London, received Britain's Laurence Olivier Award. In 1993 the theatre was granted the title "Academic", in 1998 the status of "Theatre of Europe", and in 2000 the Council of Europe awarded the company the "Europe Theatre Prize".

Today the theatre's repertoire includes trilogies based on Chekhov and Dostoevsky, Shakespeare's "King Lear" and "Hamlet", and productions based on Grossman and Platonov; the troupe is largely made up of graduates of Dodin's acting courses across several generations. Since the mid-2000s there has been discussion of building a new stage for the theatre near the Oceanarium, but the project has repeatedly been delayed by archaeological finds and legal disputes over the architectural design. In May 2023 the theatre was closed for several days for inspections by regulatory authorities.

The Maly Drama Theatre remains one of the few Russian companies with half a century of continuous touring history on Europe's leading stages, holding a status shared by only a handful of theatres in the world. For St Petersburg, it has long been more than just a city venue — it is part of the international theatrical map.