Anatoly Smeliansky

Anatoly Smeliansky is a leading Russian theater writer, scholar, and critic. He joined the Moscow Art Theater (MXAT) in 1980 as Literary Director and was appointed Associate Artistic Director in 1996. Dean of the MXAT School for Academic Studies since 1986, he became the head of the school in 2000. Dr. Smeliansky is also Editor-in-Chief of the new edition of the Complete Works Konstantin Stanislavsky and The Moscow Art Theatre Encyclopedia. He is the author of Our Collocutors: Russian Classics on Stage, Bulgakov and the Moscow Art Theatre, Is Comrade Bulgakov Dead? (rated among the best theater publications in 1995 by American Theatre magazine) and The Russian Theatre after Stalin. He has extensive experience lecturing on Russian and Soviet theater in the United States (Columbia, Carnegie Mellon University, Georgetown, Harvard, Princeton, Yale), France (the Sorbonne), and England (Cambridge and Oxford). Dr. Smeliansky is a theater columnist for Moscow News Weekly. As Secretary of the Board of the Russian Union of Theatremakers and founding member of the American-Soviet Theatre Initiative, he has represented Soviet and Russian theater at various international symposia and conferences all over the world. Dr. Smeliansky facilitated and moderated the Slavyansky Bazaar-100 Years, a conference in Moscow in June, 1997, commencing the centennial season of the MXAT. He is the recipient of several national awards for artistic excellence, including Distinguished Artsmaker of Russia.