10 thousand visited the Bolshaya Teatralnaya festival in Nizhny Novgorod.

      The festival days of the "Big Theater" project in Nizhny Novgorod concluded, which took place from June 26 to 28 on Bolshaya Pokrovskaya Street with the support of the Presidential Fund for Cultural Initiatives. The "Big Theater" project, implemented by the Nizhny Novgorod regional branch of the Union of Theater Workers of Russia, started in early June with the opening of exhibitions and special formats and gathered more than 10,000 spectators. Last weekend, a three-day festival program concluded, uniting theater venues, urban spaces, and the professional theater community. "Historically, Bolshaya Pokrovskaya Street has become the 'most theatrical' in the city—home to the Nizhny Novgorod Drama Theater, the Nizhny Novgorod Puppet Theater, the Comedy Theater, the Training Theater of our theater school, and private theater associations. Thousands of people pass through Bolshaya Pokrovskaya every day, so the appearance of representatives of the theater community to meet this huge audience was logical and expected. Moreover, the festival did what we have long been talking about—it managed to bring together academic theaters, municipal collectives, and independent projects. The festival showcased Nizhny Novgorod theaters not as a set of separate organizations but as a unified cultural environment that seeks and finds new forms of communication with the audience," noted Mikhail Pelchenkov, Deputy Minister of Culture of the Nizhny Novgorod Region. The festival opened with a press conference featuring Sergey Kabailo, Chairman of the Nizhny Novgorod regional branch of the Union of Theater Workers of Russia, Evgeny Pykhtin, Head of the Theater Mastery Center, and Alexander Gromov, Executive Director of the "Big Theater" festival. The speakers discussed the significance of the new festival for the theatrical life of the region, its concept, and its role in the development of the cultural environment of Nizhny Novgorod.

      The festival opened for the audience with a musical-literary composition "A Tale of Fedot the Archer, the Brave Young Man," performed by the Nizhny Novgorod Russian Folk Orchestra named after V. A. Kuznetsov under the direction of Boris Skhirtladze. The artistic word was presented by Dmitry Sukhanov, an artist from the Nizhny Novgorod Theater "Vera." In the evening, the main stage of the festival gathered more than 700 spectators for a concert by theater and film actor Ivan Zamotaev and the "Zamotaev Band," which became the most significant event of the first day.

      The program of the "Big Theater" festival was built around five thematic directions—"paths" through which the audience could see theater from different sides. "The Path to the Audience" united concerts and open urban events. The musical-poetic program within this direction was supported by a concert by Lilia Shaikhitdinova and the trio "Ladies' Fingers," the project "M. B." featuring Lev Kharlamov and the trio "Whales and Stars," as well as the concert program of the theater association "H.O.R. No. 6."

      Another direction of the festival—"The Actor's Path"—included meetings with artists, stand-up projects, musical and poetic programs. One of the most sought-after events within this direction was the stand-up project "Classmates. Dialogues and Improvisations." It featured graduates of the Nizhny Novgorod Theater School named after E. A. Evstigneev, Irina Pegova, who is a native of the city of Vyksa in the Nizhny Novgorod region, and Natalia Kuznetsova. The former classmates of the Nizhny Novgorod Theater School met with the audience to talk unscripted about their profession, studies, creative paths, coincidences that determined their fate, ironic twists of fate, and backstage life. About 100 people came to listen to them.

      "I first enrolled to study to become a dramatic actress, and only after that did I go to the theater as an audience member. Before that, I had never been to a theater in my life because we didn't have a theater in our city, and I had never watched anything like it on television. I only got to know the theater directly during my student years—I was completely enchanted and in love with the drama theater and all its productions," shared her memories at the meeting Russian theater and film actress Irina Pegova.

      As part of the project "Out of the Game. Actor's Tales" in this direction of the festival, the audience met with well-known artists from Nizhny Novgorod theaters Alexey Khoryenko, Lilia Shaikhitdinova, Oleg Shapkov, Igor Avrov, Igor Smelovsky, Anatoly Firstov, and Sergey Kabailo, as well as director Vladimir Zolotar. Open discussions were dedicated to the theatrical profession, creative paths, backstage stories, and the personal experiences of the artists.

      Another part of the program included meetings of graduates of the Nizhny Novgorod Theater School named after E. A. Evstigneev. The festival brought together representatives of different generations of the theater school: People's and Honored Artists of Russia, actors from leading theaters in the country, and young graduates continuing their careers on the largest stages in Moscow and St. Petersburg. Among the participants were People's Artist of Russia Anatoly Firstov, who became a guest of two festival projects, Honored Artists of Russia Olga Beregova and Tamara Kirillova, actress of the Alexandrinsky Theater Anastasia Panteleeva, GITIS student Varvara Balezina, and actress of the Nizhny Novgorod Theater for Young Spectators Anna Silchuk, a laureate and nominee of regional theater awards.

      The direction "The Path of Theater" included performances by repertory and independent collectives. On the second day of the festival program, one of the most anticipated events was the touring performance of the rap musical "Crime and Punishment" by the Moscow RAP Theater. The production, which has already received recognition at the largest theater festivals in the country, presented a modern interpretation of F. M. Dostoevsky's novel on the stage of Nizhny Novgorod, combining the author's text, rap, and theatrical dramaturgy. More than 800 guests and residents of Nizhny Novgorod attended the performance.

      The direction "The Path of the Performance" revealed the inner life of the theater and included an exhibition of costumes and a photo exhibition. In the space "Store 800" and in its windows, the festival audience could view an exhibition of theatrical costumes from the Nizhny Novgorod State Academic Theater of Opera and Ballet named after A. S. Pushkin and scenic models from the Nizhny Novgorod Theater "Comedy." Visitors saw costumes from repertory productions, as well as models of the performances "Dulcinea of Toboso" and "Mad Money," created by set designer Boris Shlyamin. At the beginning of Bolshaya Pokrovskaya, there was also a media stand where the video project "The History of Nizhny Novgorod Theater" was showcased; materials from the archives collected in this video will become part of a large documentary film that will be presented to the audience in the fall.

      In addition, more than 180 spectators attended theatrical night tours behind the scenes of Nizhny Novgorod theaters during the festival days.

      "The Path of History" was dedicated to memory and continuity; it included online projects and documentary performances that told about the people whose fates are connected with the development of Nizhny Novgorod and Russian theater. A special place in the program was occupied by two documentary performances from the Theater Mastery Center, created specifically for the festival. They were dedicated to outstanding figures of domestic theatrical culture—Fyodor Shalyapin, Maxim Gorky, and People's Artist of the USSR Evgeny Evstigneev, whose fates are inextricably linked with Nizhny Novgorod.

      The festival program featured 14 theaters and theatrical collectives, including the Nizhny Novgorod State Academic Theater of Opera and Ballet named after A. S. Pushkin, the Nizhny Novgorod State Academic Puppet Theater, the Nizhny Novgorod State Academic Drama Theater named after M. Gorky, the Nizhny Novgorod Theater "Comedy," the Nizhny Novgorod Theater for Young Spectators, the Nizhny Novgorod Theater "Vera," the Nizhny Novgorod Theater of Musical and Plastic Drama "Transfiguration," the Theater Mastery Center, the Training Theater of the Nizhny Novgorod Theater School named after E. A. Evstigneev, the creative association "Netheatre," the theater "Kamer-Yunker," the theater of Diverse Stories "KVARTe," the Nizhny Novgorod Independent Theater "Na Schastlivoy," and the theater "Black Kukuritsa." They presented 37 events of various formats.

      The festival days of the "Big Theater" provided the audience with the opportunity to follow their own route through theatrical Nizhny: from concerts and performances in open spaces to conversations with artists, exhibitions, night backstage tours, and documentary stories about the people who shaped the city's theatrical culture.

      The "Big Theater" project will continue in an online format, with its final point being in-person events in September.

      We remind you that the "Big Theater" festival is dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the Union of Theater Workers of Russia and the