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Ivanov

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A dazzling portrait of a restless man.  Treading a fine line between broad comedy and tragic melodrama, Ivanov is the most accessible of Chekhov’s plays. Written when Chekhov was only twenty-seven, Ivanov is a dazzling portrait of a man too intelligent and too bored to endure his provincial life. The brilliant, restless Nikolai Ivanov is plagued with guilt and frustration when he finds himself drawn to a beautiful young girl who threatens to destroy the moral foundations of his world. Directed by Yuri Yeremin, Artistic Director of the Pushkin Theater.

SYNOPSIS

Brilliant, restless Nikolai Ivanov, a rural landowner, is increasingly exasperated with his provincial life, the stupidity of his colleagues and neighbors, and his wife, Anna, a converted Jew who is slowly dying of tuberculosis. When Lvov, Anna’s doctor, accuses Ivanov of worsening his wife’s condition with his angry temper and periods of depression, the enraged Ivanov leaves for a dazzling party at the Lebedev estate, where he finds companionship, gossip, and Sasha Lebedev, a romantic young girl who quickly falls in love with him. Anna secretly follows Ivanov to the party, where she surprises her husband and Sasha in an embrace. Caught between mistress and dying wife, Ivanov is sucked into an ever-deepening gloom of introspection that leads to inevitable tragedy.

Performed in repertory with The Idiots Karamazov.

Credits

Creative team

By

Anton Chekhov

Translated by

Paul Schmidt

Translated by

Paul Schmidt

The late Paul Schmidt (Uncle Vanya translator), whose translations and/or adaptations of Phaedra, The Bacchae and In the Jungle of Cities were staged at the American Repertory Theater in past seasons, was one of the most influential critics, translators, and playwrights of his time. His translations, including plays by Chekhov, Gogol, Genet, Brecht, and Marivaux, have been produced by such directors as Robert Wilson, JoAnne Akalaitis, and Peter Sellars and have won awards in France, Italy, and the United States. His plays have been performed at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Thalia Theatre in Hamburg, and the Institute for Contemporary Art in London. Dr. Schmidt, who held a Ph.D. in Slavic Literature from Harvard, was a Professor of Russian Literature at the University of Texas and at Wellesley College. He also taught at Harvard, Cornell, and Yale and lectured widely in the United States and abroad. His critical essays appeared in The Nation, The New York Review of Books, and Delos. A recipient of a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, Dr. Schmidt was the author of Meyerhold at Work, and editor of The Complete Works of Arthur Rimbaud and The Collected Works of Velimir Khlebnikov. His collected translations of Chekhov's plays were published in 1997.

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Adapted and directed by

Yuri Yeremin

Adapted and directed by

Yuri Yeremin

Yuri Yeremin is the director of Three Farces and a Funeral and Ivanov and acting/directing instructor in the American Repertory Theater/Moscow Art Theater Institute for Advanced Theater Training at Harvard University.  Mr. Yeremin is one Russia's leading directors and master teachers of acting and directing. As Artistic Director of the Central Soviet Army Theatre (1981–1987) and current Artistic Director of Moscow Pushkin Theatre (since 1987), he has directed a number of productions, including The Idiot and The Possessed by Dostoevsky, The Old Man by Gorky, Ward No. 6 by Chekhov, The Inspector General by Gogol, Madame Bovary by Flaubert, and Paper Nickelodeon by Chervinsky. His production of Ward No. 6 has toured extensively all through Europe, the United States, and Canada and was a part of the New York International Theatre Festival. Mr. Yeremin has directed and lectured throughout Europe and the United States, where he directed at the Hartford Stage Company and participated in the O'Neill Theatre Center Program in Waterford, Connecticut. His 1997 production of Shelter—based on Gorky's Lower Depths—at the American Studio of the Moscow Art Theatre was regarded among the best productions of the season. He is the recipient of several high awards for artistic excellence, including Russian and French decorations and the title of People's Artist of Russia.

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Set design by

Scott Bradley

Set design by

Scott Bradley

Scott Bradley (set designer of Ivanov and The Idiots Karamazov) previously designed sets for the American Repertory Theater in 1989 for Arthur Kopit's The Road to Nirvana, Allan Knee's The Lost Boys, and Charles Marz's The Island of Anyplace. His set designs for the Goodman Theatre include the world premieres of August Wilson's Seven Guitars, Mary Zimmerman's Journey to the West and The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (also part of Lincoln Center's Serious Fun Festival); at Steppenwolf Theatre, the world premiere of Steve Martin's Picasso at the Lapin Agile and Slavs!; at the Huntington Theatre he designed A Midsummer Night's Dream and Ah! Wilderness! Currently he is working on Amiri Baraka's Dutchman for Hartford Stage and Philip Glass's opera Akhnaten for Boston Lyric Opera. Mr. Bradley is the recipient of the 1996 NY Drama Desk Award for Best Set Design and was a Tony nominee for his design of Seven Guitars. He is a graduate of the Yale School of Drama.

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Costume design by

Catherine Zuber

Costume design by

Catherine Zuber

Catherine Zuber has created the costumes for Richard II, The Doctor's Dilemma, and over forty other A.R.T. productions including Three Farces and a Funeral, Antigone, Loot, The Idiots Karamazov, Ivanov, Phaedra, The Merchant of Venice, Valparaiso, The Imaginary Invalid, The Taming of the Shrew, Peter Pan and Wendy, The Bacchae, Man and Superman, The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari, Woyzeck, The Wild Duck, The Naked Eye, Long Day's Journey Into Night, Tartuffe, Ubu Rock, Waiting for Godot, The Oresteia, Shlemiel the First, Picasso at the Lapin Agile, A Touch of the Poet, What the Butler Saw, The Cherry Orchard, and Orphée. Ms. Zuber's credits include work at Lincoln Center, The Joseph Papp Public Theater, Goodman Theatre, The Guthrie Theater, Mark Taper Forum, Seattle Repertory Theatre, Hartford Stage Company, La Jolla Playhouse, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Houston Grand Opera, and Glimmerglass Opera, among others. Her Broadway credits include The Triumph of Love (Connecticut Critics Circle Award and Drama Desk nomination), Ivanov (Drama Desk nomination), The Sound of Music, Twelfth Night, The Red Shoes, London Assurance, The Rose Tattoo, and Philadelphia Here I Come. Ms. Zuber was the recipient of the 1997 Obie Award for sustained achievement in design. She is the costume designer for La Fête des Vignerons de 1999, the massive Festival of the Winegrowers in Vevey, Switzerland.

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Lighting design by

John Ambrosone

Lighting design by

John Ambrosone

Lighting Designer John Ambrosone has designed over thirty productions for the American Repertory Theater, including Lysistrata, Absolution, Marat/Sade, Othello, Animals and Plants, Mother Courage (2001 Elliot Norton Design Award), The Doctor's Dilemma, Three Farces and a Funeral, Nocturne, IvanovThe Cripple of Inishmaan, The King Stag, Boston Marriage, Charlie in the House of Rue, Valparaiso, The Marriage of Bette and Boo, How I Learned to Drive, Nobody Dies on Friday, Man and Superman, The Old Neighborhood, When the World Was Green (A Chef's Fable), Alice in Bed, Slaughter City, and Buried Child. On Broadway he designed The Old Neighborhood. Work in resident theaters includes the Alley Theatre, Long Wharf Theatre, the Coconut Grove Playhouse, Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM), Walnut Street Theatre, Trinity Repertory Company, and Arena Stage. Mr. Ambrosone also has designed in Singapore, Moscow, Japan, Brazil, Taiwan, Mexico, Germany, and France.

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Sound design by

Christopher Walker

Sound design by

Christopher Walker

Christopher Walker has composed music and designed sound for We Won't Pay! We Won't Pay!, Phaedra, Beckett Trio: Eh Joe, Ghost Trio, and Nacht und Traüme, and An Evening of Beckett, and designed sound for The King Stag, Loot, The Idiots Karamazov, Ivanov, The Cripple of Inishmaan, Charlie in the House of Rue, The Merchant of Venice, Valparaiso, The Taming of the Shrew, The Bacchae, The Wild Duck, Woyzeck, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, The Wild Duck, Alice in Bed, Slaughter City, Buried Child, Ubu Rock, The Threepenny Opera, The Accident, Demons, Waiting for Godot, The Oresteia, Hot 'n' Throbbing, The America Play, A Touch of the Poet, The Cherry Orchard, What the Butler Saw, and Those the River Keeps at the A.R.T. Previously he composed music and designed sound for productions at the Intiman Theatre, the Bathhouse Theatre, and the Alice B. Theatre. He also scores for dance and has composed for the Allegro Dance Festival, the Bumbershoot Festival, and On The Boards.

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Nikolái Ivánov, a landowner Arliss Howard
Anna, his wife, born Sarah Abramson Debra Winger
Shabélsky, his uncle Alvin Epstein
Bórkin, manager of his estate Will LeBow
Lébedev, a landowner Jeremy Geidt
Zinaida, his wife Karen MacDonald
Sasha, their daughter Kristin Proctor
Lvov, a doctor Benjamin Evett
Babákina, a rich widow Paula Plum
Kósykh, a guest of Lébedev Evan Zes
Doodkin, a guest of Lébedev William Church
Boodkin, a guest of Lébedev Matthew Francis
Avdótya, a guest of Lébedev Larisa Linetskaia
Gavrila, Lébedev’s servant Robert Saxner