Department of Slavonic Studies

The Seventh Professor Dame Elizabeth Hill Memorial Lecture

Russian Theatre and Russian Actors on the British Stage: A Conversation with Declan Donnellan (Artistic Director Cheek by Jowl, and Chekhov International Theatre Festival)

Winstanley Theatre, Trinity College
Thursday, 20th October 2011, 5:30-7:00 pm

Declan Donnellan is joint founder of Cheek by Jowl with Nick Ormerod, and joint Artistic Director of the Company. Cheek by Jowl was described by The Independent in 1990 as the company to have had the most significant influence on British Theatre in the 1980s. The company has been Artistic Associate at the Barbican Theatre London since 2006.

Donnellan's relationship with Russian theatre began with a visit to St Petersburg in 1986; he directed and designed a production of The Winters Tale for the Malyi Drama Theatre in 1997. He has adapted Russian plays (The Mandate by Erdman and Masquerade by Lermontov) for the British stage. In 2000, he formed a company of actors in Moscow, under the auspices of The Chekhov International Theatre Festival. Their productions have already been seen in 48 cities of 25 countries, and have enjoyed significant critical acclaim. The Russian company's most recent productions include Russian-language versions of The Tempest and Twelfth Night, as well as Pushkin's Boris Godunov, and Chekhov's Three Sisters. In 2003, the Bolshoi Theatre invited the Cheek by Jowl team to stage a new version of the ballet of Romeo and Juliet (Prokofiev).

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