The 2021 Theater of Nations FEST will be held in Tobolsk and Tomsk

28 june 2021

For the first time, the annual Theater of Nations FEST festival supported by SIBUR as part of its Formula for Good Deeds social investment program will be concurrently held in two cities. On July 2 to 8 it will be hosted by Tobolsk for the fourth time in a row and on September 4 it will be held in Tomsk for the first time.

I can proudly aver that the Theater of Nations FEST has evolved into a major modern festival. Our important role is to introduce our audience to the diversity of theatrical art forms. This year's program includes everything from classic drama performances through plastic theater to storytelling and VR. I'm glad that we have such an opportunity thanks to the Formula for Good Deeds program, Evgeny Mironov, artistic director of the Theater of Nations, a People's Artist of Russia, noted. Despite these trying times, this year we are planning to hold the festival in two Siberian cities simultaneously: in Tobolsk, a city that has already become our home away from home, and, for the first time, in Tomsk. There, we are going to hold a festival of street theaters involving the genre’s best troupes.

Created at Evgeny Mironov’s initiative in 2015, the Theater of Nations FEST has been contributing a great deal to the cause of Russian culture’s decentralization. This festival has become a logical follow-on to one of the Theater of Nations’ most prominent projects, the Festival of Theaters of Small Towns of Russia, aiming to help develop regional theaters and foster better communication between the members of Russia’s theatrical community. The Theater of Nations FEST has been running with SIBUR’s support since 2016.

In the year marked by Fyodor Dostoyevsky's bicentennial anniversary we are delighted to present a special Dostoyevsky-themed program of the Theater of Nations FEST festival. The best theatrical performances that are based on Dostoyevsky’s writing will be staged in Tobolsk, the city where the writer once stayed during the first few weeks of his exile. We would like to thank our long-time partner, the Theater of Nations, and personally Mr. Yevgeny Mironov, its director, for the opportunity to experience both textbook and less known Dostoyevsky’s stories in their most unexpected embodiments and to rediscover one of Russia’s most nuanced and most read literary geniuses. This is a true gift for all of us, Stanislav Kasparov, Director of Business Support Services in SIBUR's presence regions, noted.

The Theater of Nations FEST In Tobolsk will open on July 2 and will go on for seven days. The bulk of the festival will be dedicated to the 200th anniversary of Fyodor Dostoyevsky, one of Russia’s great writers. The fest’s program will include such Theatre of Nations’ premieres as The Passion of St. Thomas put on stage by Evgeny Marchelli and starring Avangard Leontyev, a People's Artist of the Russian Federation, and Dostoyevsky 200. Storytelling directed by curator Elena Gorina and intended for a family audience, plus A Story That Has Never Been Written, a production of the Moscow Children's Theater of Shadows, and The Idiot Cafe by Moscow's Ballet’s plastic performance that won the 2016 Golden Mask Award.

The festival’s other major highlight is a VR-based production titled I Killed the Tsar. This Theater of Nations’ project recounts with a documentary precision the events of the last days of the imperial family. The viewings will be held at the memorial Governor's House building that houses the Emperor Nicholas II Family’s Museum. This was where the Romanovs stayed from August 1917 to April 1918 during their exile.

September 4 will see Tomsk host a festival of street theaters. This a new format that the Theater of Nations FEST first tested in Tobolsk. In 2019, it was attended by about 3,000 spectators. The list of performers includes the likes of air theater Upsala Circus, the Mimo Krokodil theater from St. Petersburg, and Sketches in a Space, an auteur theater from Moscow. In addition, there will be master classes conducted by experts from the Green Brush, the All-Russian social project of career guidance for schoolchildren.

The festival’s detailed program can be found on the theater’s website at: https://theatreofnations.ru/proekty/teatr-natsii-fest