Theatre Design & Technology - Spring 1996 - 19

stunning posters for its productions which could be seen all over the
city. He experimented with surrealistic imagery and had a powerful ability to theatricalize even the most boring text. I was not a particularly
successhll student and when I got a Cgrade at the end of the first semester, I went to Igor's studio and had a conversation with him which
had an important impact on my life. After that day we became much
closer and I had direct access to his studio.
It was 1972 and Scenography ruled in the theater. In Moscow,
Taganka Theater was hot and David Borovsky had just designed his
Hamlet. I can still feel the physical shock I experienced when I saw that
set. I became velY close with a group of design students at the Moscow
Art Theater School: Oleg Sheintsis, Dmitry Krymov, and Valentina
Komolova. At tlle Lenningrad Institute, I was friends Witll several students of Edward Kotchergin: Alexander Orlov, Olga Zemtsova, Valery
Victorov, and Irina Cherednikova. It was a very fruitful atmosphere and
we learned from each other immensely. All these people today are in the
"national team" and we are still friends.
I was fortunate to know and be influenced by a number of great
artists but I must mention two nanles which I consider particularly important. Daniil Leader and Anatoly Efros. Leader is a designer who literally tames tlle powers of The Conflict and uses it as a fuel for his sets.
Efros was a director whose productions and life demonstrated tllat tlle
Artist still possesses the ability to express tlle highest truth and to purify
our souls.
After graduation I worked for ten years as a resident designer at
my fatller's theater, The Leningrad Theater for Youth. Those were wonderful years and now I look back in anlUsement. It took me five minutes
to walk from my place to the theater where I spent endless house sitting
in front of tlle model box, dreanting, and I was paid for that. We could
develop projects for years, and we had a lot of resources to rely on. I
must say that it was a truly artistic and a very exciting time. I guess to
some extent I was shielded from tlle harsh reality by my father who took
the blows from the party guys. Eventually they won, and in 1986, after
twenty-sLx years, my fatller lost his tlleater. Four years ago, he started a
new theatre company which he leads today.
In 1988 I found myself standing in Manhattan with about $600 in
my pocket. (At that time $600 was equivalent to 420 rubles; now one
dollar is 46,500.00 rubles.) I lived on tltis money for tluee months.
Then I went back home, designed a show in Yugoslavia, and started to
forget that I had once \~sited California. But in September 1989, I was
il1\~ted by the Honolulu Theater for Youth to design a show with my father as the director. Since then I have traveled all over America, from
Alaska to Florida, taught at two lIItiversities (DePaul and Indiana Univel~
sity, Bloomington) and designed over fifty shows. This countly has become my second home. I find myself getting furious listening to Pat
Buchanan on the news, or lauglting like crazy at some joke on "Saturday Night Live." Anlerica has slowly taken control over a significant part
of my soul.
I anl a Russian artist. I was shaped by the pains and joys of my
country. EvelY intellectual or emotional reference I make goes back
home to the place where I once was a cltild. But the tree is not only
roots, it's also the trunk and the branches. I anl grateful to the winds
and rains of Amel;ca.

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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Theatre Design & Technology - Spring 1996