Bolshoi Drama Theatre named after G. A. Tovstonogov

The Bolshoi Drama Theatre at 65 Fontanka Embankment was founded in the first years after the revolution: the decree establishing it was signed by Maria Andreyeva, commissar for theatres, in August 1918 on the initiative of Maxim Gorky. From 1932 to 1992 the theatre bore the name of its founder, Gorky, before being renamed in honour of Georgy Tovstonogov, who led the company from 1956 to 1989. The BDT has three stages: the main and the small stage in the historic building on the Fontanka, and, since 2005, the Kamennoostrovsky Theatre, the oldest wooden theatre building in the country.

The building itself was erected by the patron Count Anton Apraksin to a design by the Swiss architect Ludwig Fontana; before the revolution it housed Suvorin's theatre. The new BDT's company was assembled from actors of the theatres of Andrei Lavrentyev and Yuri Yuryev, and the artist Alexander Benois was among its founders. The premiere — Schiller's Don Carlos, staged by Lavrentyev — took place on 15 February 1919 in the unheated hall of the Conservatory and ran for five hours to full houses. In 1920 the company moved into the former Suvorin Theatre building, where it remains to this day.

For the first decade and a half the stage presented world classics, and the theatre's ideological direction was set by Gorky and Alexander Blok. From 1929 to 1935 the company was led by Konstantin Tverskoy, a pupil of Meyerhold, who turned the repertoire towards contemporary drama; he was later subjected to political repression. The following two decades brought a protracted crisis, with chief directors changing almost every year and the theatre threatened with closure over its debts. The company was evacuated to Kirov and brought back to the besieged city in February 1943 to perform for soldiers at the front.

The turning point came in 1956, when Tovstonogov — the eleventh chief director in the theatre's history — took the helm. He renewed almost a third of the company and told the troupe, "I am not to be trifled with." The 1957 production of Aesop, followed by a staging of The Idiot with Innokenty Smoktunovsky in the lead role, marked the birth of the new BDT, which grew into one of the country's foremost stages, touring Europe, Japan, Argentina and Taiwan. Tovstonogov died at the wheel of his car in May 1989, on his way back from a dress rehearsal.

After his death the theatre was headed by the actor Kirill Lavrov, and from 2004 by the director Temur Chkheidze, under whom the theatre was given the Kamennoostrovsky stage. With the arrival of Andrei Moguchy in 2013 came productions such as Alice, starring Alisa Freindlich, and What Is to Be Done, while in 2015 the repertoire welcomed the inclusive production The Language of Birds, created together with a centre for people with autism. In 1979 the theatre was awarded the Order of the October Revolution.