Born in 1944 in Siberia, Lev Dodin began studying theatre as a child at the Leningrad Young Viewers’ Theatre. He was admitted to the Leningrad Theatre Institute immediately after graduating high school and studied under the famous stage director and teacher Boris Vulfovich Zon. Dodin’s debut as a director came in 1966 with the televised performance of First Love, based on the story by Ivan Turgenev. Then, dozens of shows were staged at theatres in St. Petersburg, Moscow and abroad. Work with the Maly Drama Theatre started in 1975, with Karel Capek’s The Robber. The staging of Abramov’s The House in 1980 determined the fate of Lev Dodin and the Maly Drama Theatre. He has been the theatre’s artistic director since 1983. He continued staging: Brothers and Sisters, Lord of the Flies, Stars in the Morning Sky, Gaudeaumus, The Devils, Love Under the Elms, Claustrophobia, Chevengur and many others. The performances staged by Dodin after A. Chekhov’s plays make a tetralogy: Cherry Orchard, A Play without a Title, The Seagull, Uncle Vanya. In 1992, the theatre led by Lev Dodin and Lev Dodin himself were invited to join the Union of Theatres of Europe, and in 1998 Maly Drama became the third theatre granted the status Theatre of Europe, after the Odeon in Paris and the Piccolo in Milan. Lev Dodin is a member of the General Assembly of the Union of Theatres of Europe. In 1967, Dodin began teaching, acting and directing. Nowadays, he is a professor at the St. Petersburg State Theatre Arts Academy, where he chairs the stage direction department. Lev Dodin has been raising many generations of actors and directors and teaching master classes at theatre schools in Great Britain, France, Japan and the USA. Many directors working in St. Petersburg have been his students one way or another. Lev Dodin’s directing and productions have won many state and international prizes and awards, including state prizes of Russia and the USSR, the Triumph Independent Prize, Golden Mask National Awards and the Laurence Olivier Award. In 2000, Lev Dodin was granted the highest European Theatre Award – Europe Theatre Prize, and in 2001, he received the Russian Presidential Award.
Constantin Chiriac:
''A legend of Russian theatre, a personality that has amazed the world and keeps doing so, Lev Dodin is awarded a star on the Sibiu Walk of Fame for his creation, Maly Drama Theatre – Theatre of Europe, for his incomparable performances and for the generations of actors and directors he has trained.''
Star offered with the support of: Raiffeisen Bank
