Drama & Theater with John Freedman​

ARTICLES IN BOOKS/COLLECTIONS

• Foreword to Alexander Gershkovich's The Theater of Yuri Lyubimov: Art and Politics at the Taganka Theater in Moscow (Paragon, 1989). Order here. 

• Introduction to Declan Donnellan’s translation of Nikolai Erdman’s The Mandate.(London: Nick Hern, 2004). Order here.

• "Kamochka, Come with Your Whole Family and I Will Shelter You Again," a chapter by Kama Ginkas as told to John Freedman in Smuggled in Potato Sacks: Fifty Stories of the Hidden Children of the Kaunas Ghetto, ed. by Solomon Abramovich and Yakov Zilberg. (Vallentine Mitchell Publishers, 2011). Order here. Published in Lithuanian translation under the book title of Išgelbėti bulvių maišuose (2015). 

• "Narrative Technique and the Art of Story-telling in Anton Chekhov's 'Little Trilogy'"in Critical Essays on Anton Chekhov, ed. Thomas A. Eekman (Boston: G.K. Hall & Co., 1989). Originally published in South  Atlantic Review, No. 1 (1988), where it was named the journal's "Best Article of the Year". Order here. 

• "Piati Ruski Dramatici 21. Storocia" in Ruska Drama (Bratislava, 2008). Afterword to this anthology of contemporary Russian plays in Slovakian.

• "The Search for What Might be True: Thoughts From Inside an Era of Change," an essay chapter in The Russian Experience: Americans Encountering the Enigma, 1917 to the Present, ed. by Choi Chatterjee and Beth Holmgren. (Routledge, 2013). Read parts of the editors' introduction here. Order here. 

• "SÚČASNÁ UKRAJINSKÁ DRÁMA: TEXTY AKO LITERÁRNE VOJENSKÉ ČINY" (Recent Ukrainian Drama. Literary-based Acts of War) (Bratislava, 2023). An introduction to UKRAJINSKÁ DRÁMA, a collection of plays by Pavlo Arie, Natalia Vorozhbyt, and Maksym Kurochkin published in Slovakian translation.

• "Az élet lehelete: ukrán dráma a háború idején (A Breath of Fresh Air: Ukrainian War-time Drama), introduction to an online collection of plays: Olena Astasieva, A Dictionary of Emotions in a Time of War; Andriy Bondarenko, Survivor's Syndrome; Olesia Morhunec-Isaenko, The Long Walk, published in Hungarian by Szinhaz. Read here. 

• "A Dictionary of Emotions in a Time of War. Teksty Kijowskiego Teatru Dramaturgów: literackie akty wojny" (Texts from Kyiv's Theater of Playwrights: Literary Acts of War), Teatr – Literatura – Zarządzanie, ed. by Tomasz Wiśniewski, Roksana Zgierska, Katarzyna Pastuszak and Katarzyna Kręglewska (Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Gdańskiego, Gdańsk 2024.) Forthcoming.

• "Ο Ανδρέας Φλουράκης και η Δραματουργία του Τραύματος" (Andreas Flourakis and Trauma Drama), an essay written for a festschrift for Andreas Flourakis, to be published in Mandragoras, a magazine of art and life, 2024?
  
   

• ARTICLES IN ENCYCLOPEDIAS

• Columbia Encyclopedia of Modern Drama, vols. 1 and 2, ed. by Gabrielle H. Cody and Evert Sprinchorn (Columbia University , 2007). Ten articles on Russian and Soviet drama and theater. Order here if you can spare $500. My essay-entry on Russian and Soviet theater can be accessed here. Following are links to entries on Alexei Arbuzov, A Conspiracy of Feelings, Nikolai Erdman, Daniil Kharms, Anatoly Lunacharsky, Yury Lyubimov, Yury Olesha, Yevgeny Shvarts and The Suicide. 

• Encyclopedia of Contemporary Russian Culture, ed. Tatiana Smorodinskaya, Karen Evans-Romaine and Helena Goscilo (Routledge 2007). Thirty-four articles on Russian drama and theater. Order here.

• Encyclopedia of Europe 1914-2004 (Thomson Gale, 2005). Article on Konstantin Stanislavsky.

• Modern Encyclopedia of Russian, Soviet and Eurasian History (MERSH), ed. Bruce Adams, Edward J. Lazzerini and George N. Rhyne. Eight articles for the Supplement. Information here.

• Popular Fiction in America Series II (Washington, D.C.: Beacham Publishing, 1987). Article on Mikhail Bulgakov.

• Research Guide to Biography and Criticism: World Drama (Washington, D.C.: Research Publishing, 1986). Article on Denis Fonvizin.

​

​

BLOGS, INTERVIEWS AND REPORTS

• Anna Karim interviews me about the new drama phenomenon for the NiteNEWS theater website. 

• Nikolai Kornatsky interviews me about my latest book, Real and Phanton Pains: An Anthology of New Russian Drama, for Russia Beyond the Headlines, which ran in various western newspapers in early August 2014. It is an English version of a Russian-language interview that ran in Izvestia on Aug. 4, 2014.  

• Andrew Ashley Hatcher interviews me in July 2014 about Kama Ginkas and Anton Chekhov in the lead-up to Graham Schmidt's production of my translation of Ginkas's adaptation of The Black Monk at Breaking String Theater.

• Alena Tveritina interviews me on the topic of Alexander Ostrovsky for the Russia Behind the Headlines publication, Aug. 4, 2013.

• This guest blog - "Maksym Kurochkin: A Writer for the Global Age" - preceded Kurochkin's appearance at the Martin E. Segal Center at CUNY and was posted on the website of the Martin E. Segal Center on March 18th 2010.

• This guest blog - "Maksym Kurochkin, Russian Drama and the New and Evolving Country of Russia" - was written about Kurochkin's appearance at the Martin E. Segal Theater Center at CUNY and was posted on the website of the Martin E. Segal Center on March 23rd 2010.

• This piece, "A Few Facts about Alexandra Chichkanova," about the playwright Alexandra Chichkanova and her play I Am Me, was written at the request of Nicole Kontolefa to accompany the materials for her production of the play in New York in 2013.  

• This guest blog entry - "Russian Drama, A Birthday, a Parade and 100 Surprises at Towson University" - was written about my trip with playwright Olga Mukhina to Towson University and the Martin E. Segal Theater Center at CUNY and was published December 2009 on the website of the Trust for Mutual Understanding.

• This interview about Olga Mukhina and her play Flying was conducted by Julia M. Smith and was published on the website of the New Russian Drama program hosted by Towson University.

• This interview was done for the program of Yury Urnov's staged reading of Maksym Kurochkin's The Schooling of Bento Bonchev during the Towson University New Russian Drama season and is published on the website of that program. 

• This interview by David Gregory was done for the program of Joseph Ritsch's production of The Polar Truth by Yury Klavdiev and was published on the website of the New Russian Drama season at Towson University.

• This interview was done for the program of Peter Wray's production of Vyacheslav Durnenkov's Frozen in Time (Exhibits) during the Towson University New Russian Drama season (2009-2010) and is published on the website of that program.

• This interview was done for the program of Stephen Nunns's production of the so-called Natasha Plays - Natasha's Dream and I Won - two monologues by Yaroslava Pulinovich, which were part of the Towson University New Russian Drama program (2009-2010). It is available on that program's website.

• This interview - "Great Contemporary Drama Exists in Russia" - was conducted by Irina Korneyeva-Lyubshina and ran in several newspapers in the U.S. and England in the summer of 2009. This link is to the version published in the Telegraph.

• This report was published in the Kennan Center newsletter after I gave a talk in the fall of 2008 about contemporary Russian drama. 

• This interview by Josh Wilson for the site of the School of Russian and Asian Studies was done many years ago but it still reflects many of my views and experiences quite well.

​

​

SELECTED SCHOLARLY AND OTHER ARTICLES

Significantly absent here are the approximately 250 regular columns I wrote for Plays International (London) between 1992 and 2016, columns I wrote for my hometown newspaper the Claremont Courier in the early 1990s, features I wrote for the defunct magazine TheaterWeek (NY) and reviews and articles I wrote for various popular publications in the 1980s. 

• "Alexander Bakshi and his Mythological Theatre of Sound," TheatreForum, No. 19 (Summer/Fall 2001), 3-10. Published here. Read it here in PDF.

• "ANDREI KUREICHIK’S “INSULTED. BELARUS”: ONE YEAR ON," The Theatre Times (September 2, 2021).  Available online.

• "The Art of Seeing: Dmitry Volkostrelov Interprets Pavel Pryazhko," TheatreForum, No. 45 (2014), 49-55. Read it here in PDF. 

• "At a Russian Festival, the Discussion's the Thing" (on the Golden Mask Festival in 2000), New York Times (April 30, 2000). Available here. 

• "At 85, a Director Who's Seen it All Keeps His Eyes Open" (on Yury Lyubimov) New York Times (September 29, 2002). Available here.

• "Back off Chekhov!" North American Chekhov Society Bulletin, Vol. X, No. 1 (Winter 2001-02), 2-6. My purpose on this site is not to annotate my work, but I can't resist doing so with this piece. N.B.: the following statements are meant to amuse and nothing else whatsoever, so help me God! And so: Ralph Lindheim, the Bulletin's new editor at the time, saw a review I wrote for The Moscow Times in which I lamented witnessing so many copy-cat Chekhov productions. Ralph wanted to stir things up in the somewhat sleepy Chekhov world with his first issue and he asked if I would write a polemical article to this purpose. I love a bit of bent metal and flying dust, and so agreed to write this piece, in which I gave vent to frustrations that had built over the years as I saw dozens and dozens of bad, bean-pushing Chekhov productions.  I chose my title as a respectful nod to Anatoly Lunacharsky's famous early 1920s essay, "Back to Ostrovsky!" a piece in which he encouraged writers and directors to study at the great playwright's feet, so to speak. I, of course, was doing just the opposite. Nevertheless,the essay was written with my tongue planted firmly in cheek, irony dripping out both corners of my mouth onto the page. But I created a monster. Unknown to me, someone in Russia saw the article, was horrified that I was taking pot-shots at his or her god, and translated the piece into Russian. No one asked my permission to do this; no one checked the translation with me. To this day, in 2017, I have not seen the translation, I do not know who did it. My understanding is that it was published, but no one has ever shown or presented me with a copy. I have seen, however, its consequences. I have been vilified, scorned and demonstratively ignored in the Russian Chekhov world for this piece that I wrote in fun, but which a lot of people took very, very seriously. In 2010 I touched on this situation briefly in a Moscow Times web column, but as recently as January 2011 I received an email from a Russian reader taking me to task for completely misunderstanding Chekhov. I recently saw where Gordon MacVay called my piece a "cri de coeur" a few years ago. I don't know what that means, since his article is under lock and key on the net, like so many of my own (web companies charging fees for access to work we have done, without asking permission or paying royalties - but that's another rant!). In any case, this essay, which I may hold dearer to my heart than almost any other I have written, has become for me a symbol for why I (mostly) abandoned academia at the end of the 1980s and have attempted to live in the real world ever since. I still swear by every word I wrote, but you have to read the piece carefully, you have to look up from the page now and then and look out the window to see what is actually happening in the world, and, before that, you have to take off the blinders and loosen your tie... Otherwise you might get wound up in your knickers... Read it here in PDF.

• "The Beautiful Sounds of Olga Mukhina," TheatreForum, No. 15 (Summer/Fall 1999), 12-13.  Published here.

• "Before and After History Changed" (preview of performances by Pyotr Fomenko and Lev Dodin in New York), New York Times (July 9, 2000). Available here. 

• "Belarus and Ukraine: No Longer Russia's Hinterlands," Critical Stages 25 (June 2022). Accessible here.

• "Biernat of Lublin: The First Polish Writer in the Vernacular," Polish Review, No. 3 (1985). Published here. 

• "Big Names Keep Moscow Moving: The 1995-1996 Season," Slavic and East European Performance, Vol. 16, No. 3 (1996), 19-30. Available online here. 

• "Boris Yukhananov, The Tale of an Upright Man," TheatreForum, No. 27 (Summer/Fall 2005), 8-15. Published here and available here. 

• "Brièvement, à propos du projet de lecture d'œuvres dramatiques ukrainiennes partout dans le monde," preface to a dual Belgian-French issue of contemporary Ukrainian writing in the annual journal L'Arbre a Palabres, 2022.

• "Center Stage: Chekhov in Russia 100 Years On," Modern Drama, Vol. XLII, No. 4 (Winter 1999), 541-564.

• "The Changing Space of Russian Theatre," TheatreForum, No. 17 (Summer/Fall 2000), 3-11. Published here.

• "Closing the Book on an Era in Russian Theater History," a piece written especially for the AATSEEL Newsletter (Oct. 2014): 4-5. Available online.   

• "Contemporary Russian Drama: The Journey from Stagnation to a Golden Age, "Theatre Journal, Vol. 62, No. 3 (2010), 389-420. Available here. Read it here in PDF.

• "Crossing the Divide Between Russian and American Theatre," Slavic and East European Performance, Vol. 32, No. 1 (2012/2013), 35-44. Available online. Read it here in PDF.

• The Dark Side of Russian Theatre's Latest Boom," The Stage, March 16, 2017, 38-39. Read it here in PDF.

• "Dmitry Krymov: Designer's Theatre," TheatreForum, No. 32 (Winter/Spring 2008): 13-18. Available here. Read it here in PDF.

• "Dmitry Krymov by John Freedman," Bomb 136 (Summer 2016). Available online.

• The Dramaturgy of Nikolaj Erdman: An Artistic and Cultural Analysis, a PhD. dissertation, Harvard University (1990). Available here. 

• "Eimuntas Nekrosius Brings Pushkin and Consternation to Moscow," Slavic and East European Performance, Vol. 15, No. 1 (1995), 50-54. Available online here.

• "Ekho Dostoevskogo i Bloka v p'ese Nikolaia Erdmana 'Samoubiitsa'," Vestnik tomskogo gosudarstvennogo pedagogicheskogo universiteta No. 7 (2011): 19-26. Available here. The entire publication, dedicated to Erdman and comedy, and including articles about Mayakovsky, Krzhizhanovsky, Chekhov, Bulgakov, Dmitry Prigov and others, is available in its entirety here.

• "Enter Left and Right," Times Literary Supplement, May 15, 2015. A review of The Soviet Theater, A Documentary History, ed. by Laurence Senelick and Sergei Ostrovsky.

• "An Experimenter Helps the West Warm Up to Gogol" (on the Valery Fokin-Alexander Bakshi production of A Hotel Room in the Town of N), New York Times (May 9, 1999). Available here. 

• "The First Anton Chekhov International Theater Festival," Slavic and East European Performance, Vol. 13, No. 1 (1993). Available online here.

• "Four Plays in Boston," with Hallie Anne White, Soviet and East-European Drama, Theatre and Film, Vol. 8, No. 2-3 (1988), 56-60. Available online here. 

• "The Frankly Impossible Drama of Maksym Kurochkin," introduction to my translation of Kurochkin's Repress and Excite in TheatreForum, No. 34 (2009), 22-24. Available here.

• "From Russia with Shakespeare," Plays International, Vol. 27, Nos. 9 & 10 (2012), pp. 10-11. A preview of Dmitry Krymov's A Midsummer Night's Dream before the world premiere in England in August 2012. 

• "From Russia with Love," Plays International (Spring/Summer 2014), pp. 14-15. A preview of productions by Andrei Konchalovsky prior to London runs. Read it here in PDF. 

• "Genre-Bending SounDrama," an introduction essay in the program for The War, Vladimir Pankov's production at the Edinburgh International Festival, 2014. 

• "Glamour Meets Menace in Olga Mukhina's Flying," TheatreForum No. 40 (2011): 67-70. Introduction to my translation of the play.

• "A Glimpse into Anatoly Vasilyev's School of Dramatic Art," Slavic and East European Performance, Vol. 13, No. 2 (1993), 19-22. Available online here.

• "The Grotowski Constellation," American Theater (May/June 2009), 26-27, 65. Available here. 

• "History's Revenge: Some Attempts to Come to Terms with a Cultural Heritage on the Soviet Stage," Theater Three, Final Issue, Nos. 10-11 (1992), 211-222.

• I am interviewed along with Douglas Langworthy, Caridad Svich and Stephen Wadsworth in Kerri Allen's "In Other Words," American Theater (Dec. 2004), 32-34, 66, 68. Available here. 

• "An Iconoclast with Tongue-in-cheek," Performing Arts Journal, No. 95 (2010), 81-85. Introduction of publication of Maksym Kurochkin's The Schooling of Bento Bonchev. Available here. 

• Interview with Stanislaw Baranczak, Southwest Review, No. 4 (1986), 422-438 (including three new poems translated by Reginald Gibbons).

• "Introduction" [to published excerpt of 'Insulted. Belarus' by Andrei Kureichik] (Sept. 2020), Contemporary Theatre Review Interventions/Dispatches: https://www.contemporarytheatrereview.org/2020/dispatches-insulted-belarussia/

• "Iskrivlenie real'nosti i vremeni v poiske istiny v romanakh Pushkinsky dom i Shkola dlya durakov," Dvadtsat' dva, IX, No. 48 (June-July 1986), 201-210. Also in Literaturnoe obozrenie, No. 12 (1989), 14-16.

• "Kama Ginkas: A Short Glossary," Russian Theatre Past and Present, Vol. 2 (2001), 90-119.  Read it here in PDF.

• "Kama Ginkas Directs Fyodor Dostoevsky," Slavic and East European Performance, Vol. 15, No. 2 (1995), 22-31. Available online here.

• "Kama Ginkas Rehearses Rothschild's Fiddle," Slavic and East European Performance, Vol. 24, No. 2 (2004), 12-27. Available online here.

• "KEN REYNOLDS: 1938–2021. A PERSONAL AND PROFESSIONAL REMEMBRANCE OF EAST EUROPEAN THEATRE’S FINEST PHOTOGRAPHER," The Theatre Times (Sept. 25, 2021). Available online. 

• "Kto prevrashchaet t'mu vo svet...," Sovremennaya dramaturgiya, No. 4 (1999), 172-182. Introduction to the first Russian publications of Erdman's The Hypnotist and Brother and Sister (a parody of Lev Gurych Sinichkin).

• "Lending an Ear to Russian Tradition," Plays International, Vol. 21, Nos. 9&10 (2006), 18-19. Feature on Oleg Bogaev. Published here. Read it here in PDF.

• "Life without Yaz," Boston Ledger (April 9-16, 1984).

• "Lyudmila Razumovskaya: Playwright by Chance," Theater Three, Final Issue, Nos. 10-11 (1992), 195-201. Read it here in PDF.

• "The Making of 'Insulted. Belarus.'  John Freedman on How Revolution in Belarus Sparked a New Approach to Political Theatre," Plays International 35 (Nos. 9-12, Winter 2020), 30-32.

• "Maksym Kurochkin: A Writer for Paradoxical Times," introduction to John J. Hanlon's translation of Maksym Kurochkin's Vodka, Fucking and Television in TheatreForum, No. 32 (2008), 85-87. 

• "Memory, Imagination and the Liberating Force of Literature in Sasha Sokolov's A School for Fools," Canadian-American Slavic Studies, 21, Nos. 3-4 (Fall-Winter 1987), 265-278. Read it here in PDF.

• "Moscow Buoyed by Touring Companies," Slavic and East European Performance, Vol. 16, No. 1 (1996), 39-50. Available online here.

• "Moscow Narrows its Sights and Hits the Mark," Slavic and East European Performance, Vol. 15, No. 3 (1995), 40-50. Available online here.

• "Moscow's Stanislavsky Electrotheatre and How I Came to Join its Artistic Staff," Plays International, Vol. 31, Nos. 7-9 (Autumn 2016), 48-51. Read it here in PDF.

• "Moving in New Directions: the Class of Expressive Plastic Movement," Slavic and East European Performance, Vol. 14, No. 2 (1994), 16-23. Available online here. 

• "Na Estrade i v tsirke," Sovremennaya dramaturgiya, No. 3-4 (1995), 220-223. Introduction to first Russian publications of various Erdman sketches for circus and music hall.

• "New Life for an Old Idea: The Reappearance of Moscow's Bat," Soviet and East European Performance, Vol. 10, No. 2 (1990), 35-40. Available online here.

• "Nikolai Erdman: An Overview," Slavic and East European Journal, Vol. 28, No. 4 (1984), 462-476.

• "Nikolai Erdman na stsene i v pechati Ameriki i Anglii," Sovremennaya dramaturgiya, No. 5 (1989), 238-244. 

• Nikolai Robertovich Erdman" and "Yuri Lyubimov on Nikolai Erdman" (an interview), Soviet and East-European Drama, Theatre and Film vol. 8, Nos. 2&3 (1988), 8-16. Published here. 

• "Notes from K.I. from 'Crime'," TheatreForum, No. 23 (Summer/Fall 2003), 89-90. Published here.

• "Not Putin's Favorite Venue," The Stage (Feb. 12, 2015): 38-39. A feature on the problems and survival of Teatr.doc. Read it here in PDF.

• "Nova Drama in Slovakia," Slavic and East European Performance, Vol. 27, No. 3 (2007), 21-30. Available online here.

• "An Olympics of Cooperation Rather Than Competition" (on Alexander Bakshi's The Polyphony of the World and Vladimir Martynov's The Apocalypse), New York Times (June 10, 2001). Available here.

• "Presenting  Andrei Kureichik's Insulted Belarus to a World in Lockdown," Mise en Abyme (January-June 2021) Vol. 8, issue 1: pp. 61 - 78. Link to article. Link to entire issue. 

• "On prosto tikho zakryl dver' za svoim talantom," Teatr,  No. 3 (2003), 132-143. On Nikolai Erdman.

• "Out of the Shadows: Ilya and Arseny Epelbaum in Moscow," Puppetry International, No. 26 (2009), 10-12. For some reason the contents page on the web and in the print issue calls the article "The Fabulous Epelbaums." Read it here in PDF.

• "Parting Company with ART; Director Yuri Lyubimov says he won't be back," Boston Globe (April  18, 1987).

• "Pazh, Podavai mne "detskuyu naivnost!" ili Nikolai Erdman v prostranstve detskikh fil'mov" in Transformatsiya i funktsionirovanie kul'turnykh modelei v russkoi literature, a collection of articles (Tomsk, 2008),  234-242.

• "Pereveshivaya ves slov i tyagoty slavy," Sovremennaya dramaturgiya, No. 4 (1994), 210-213. Introduction to first Russian publication of Erdman's short satirical play The Destruction of Europe on Holy Square and a document recording heated discussions of The Suicide at the Vakthangov Theater in 1930. 

• "A Period of Transition: Baroque Humor in the Fraszki of Daniel Naborowski," Polish Review, 33, No. 4 (1988). Available here. 

• "Philosopical Russian Sleuth," Plays International, Vol. 22, Nos. 5&6 (2007), 14. On playwright Dmitry Minchyonok. Published here. Read it here in PDF.

• "The Poetry of Excess" (on director and playwright Nikolai Kolyada), TheatreForum, No. 30 (Winter/Spring 2007), 48-57. Available here. 

• "The Possibilities and Limitations of Poetry: Wislawa Szymborska's Wielka Liczba,"  The Polish Review, 31, Nos. 2-3 (1986), 137-147. Available here. Read it here in PDF.

• "The Problem with Anatoly Vasilyev," Slavic and East European Performance, Vol. 15, No. 2 (1995), 12-18. Available online here.

• "Recreating a Tradition: Moscow's Sibilyov Studio," Slavic and East European Performance, Vol. 12, No. 1 (1992), 20-29. Available online here. 

• Review of Aleksandr Gershkovich's Teatr na Taganke (1964-1984), Slavic Review, Nos. 3/4 (1987).

• Review of Aleksej Gvozdev's Teatral´naja kritika, Slavic and East European Journal, Vol. 33, No. 1 (Spring 1989), 132-134.

• Review of Andrei Bitov's novel Pushkin House, Contemporary Literary Criticism, Vol. 57 (Detroit: Gale Research, 1990). Originally published as "Searching in the Archives" in American Book Review, No. 1 (1988).

• Review of Henri Troyat's Chekhov, Modern Drama, Vol. XXXI, No. 1 (1988), 130-132.

• Review of Jeffrey Brooks's When Russia Learned to Read, South Atlantic Review, No. 1 (1987).

• Review of Michael Green, ed. and trans., Russian Symbolist Theatre, Slavic and East European Journal, No. 4  (1986).

• Review of Michael Holquist and Katerina Clark's Mikhail Bakhtin, Rocky Mountain Review, No. 4 (1985).

• Review of Jurij Elagin's Temnyj genij, Slavic and East European Journal, No. 4 (1984).

• Review of Youri Lioubimov's Le feu sacré: souvenirs d'une vie de théâtre, Modern Drama, No. 3 (1987), 444-446.

• "A Revolutionary Road: Remembering Mikhail Ugarov, the Father of Russia’s Radical New Drama Movement," April 7, 2018, The Calvert Journal. Available online here.

• "The Rise and the Fall of the Youth Movement in Moscow: The Fomenko Studio and Others," Slavic and East European Performance, Vol. 14, No. 1 (1994), 27-35. Available online here. 

• "Russian Theater in the Twenty-First Century: A Critic's Journal," Theater, Vol. 36, No. 1 (2006), 5-25. Available here.

• "Russian Winter," Opera News (Jan. 2015; Vol. 79, No. 7). A piece about the political problems facing Russian culture and Russian artists (Valery Gergiev, Anna Netrebko, Andrei Makarevich, Oleg Tabakov, Maria Maksakova, Nikolai Kolyada and others) in the new Putin age. Available online here. 

• "The Rustaveli Theater Moscow Tour," Slavic and East European Performance, Vol. 14, No. 3 (1994). Published here; should be available online soon. 

• "The Second Anton Chekhov International Theater Festival," Slavic and East European Performance, Vol. 16, No. 3 (1996), 45-55. Available online here. 

• "Some Moscow Premieres: The 1991-1992 Season," Slavic and East European Performance, Vol. 12, Nos. 2&3 (1992), 10-19. Available online here. 

• "The Theatrical Photography of Ken Reynolds," Russian Theatre Past and Present, Vol. 1 (2000), 105-106, plus plates 107-119. Read it here in PDF.

• "Total Theater, Starring Puppets" (on Ilya Epelbaum, Maya Krasnopolskaya and their Ten' Theater), New York Times (March 31, 2002). Available here. 

• "Three Soviet Suicides," Soviet and East European Performance, Vol. 11, No. 2 (1991), 37-45. Available online here.

• "Transformatsiya Myzykal'nogo magazina," with Valentina Golovchiner, in Transformatsiya i funktsionirovanie kul'turnykh modelei v russkoi literature, a collection of articles (Tomsk, 2008),  294-304. This is an introduction to the first publication of a version of Muzykal'ny magazin, a sketch written by Erdman and Vladimir Mass.

• "Translating Ginkas Transforming Chekhov," TheatreForum, No. 25 (Summer/Fall 2004), 72-76. Published here. Read it here in PDF. 

• "Tributes to Alma Law, 1927-2003," Slavic and East European Performance, Vol. 24, No. 1 (2004), 14-16. Available online here. 

• "Two from St. Petersburg," Slavic and East European Performance, Vol. 16, No. 2 (1996), 57-60. Available online here. 

• "Understanding the Language of the Theater: Nekrosius's The Nose," Slavic and East European Performance, Vol. 12, No. 1 (1992), 41-46. Available online here. 

• "Vokrug i mezhdu strok: Skripka Rotshil'da," Teatr, No. 1 (2004), 11-13.

• "Vspominaya Erdmana," Sovremennaya dramaturgiya, No. 1 (1997), 227-242. Interviews I conducted with Nikolai Erdman's friends and colleagues Rina Zelyonaya, Valentin Pluchek, Yevgeny Simonov, Anna Mass.

• "Vspominaya Erdmana," Sovremennaya dramaturgiya, No. 4 (1998), 241-254. Interviews I conducted with Nikolai Erdman's friends and colleagues Yury Lyubimov, Sergei Mikhalkov, Tamara Ivanova, Iosif Prut, Anatoly Agamirov, Irina Kamyshyova.

• "War and Peace in Miniature" (a preview of Rezo Gabraidze's coming appearance in New York), New York Times (July 21, 2002). Available here. 

• "Where New Theater is coming In From the Cold; Daring New Plays Find an Eager Russian Audience" (on Maksym Kurochkin's Kitchen and the new drama phenomenon), New York Times (June 10, 2001). Available here.

• "The Year of the Actor in Moscow," Slavic and East European Performance, Vol. 13, No. 3 (1993), 14-26. Available online here. 

• "Young Guns: Playwrights Draw a Bead on the New Russia," American Theater (July/August 2004), 68-73. Read it here in PDF.

• "Yuri Lyubimov on Nikolai Erdman" preceded by brief "Nikolai Erdman," Soviet and East-European Drama, Theatre and Film, Vol. 8, Nos. 2-3 (1988), 8-16. Available online here. 

• "Yury Lyubimov, 1917-2014," an obituary written for American Theater magazine, Oct. 2014. Available online.

• "Yury Lyubimov, for whom History Was a Home," a remembrance written for the NITEnews website, October 6, 2014. Available online.  

​

​

SHORT FEATURES AND REVIEWS

• This short essay - "Translating Russia for America" - was written for the programs of the New Russian Drama season (2009-2010) at Towson University and is published on that program's website.

• This short essay - "The Drama of the New Russia" - was written for the programs of the New Russian Drama season at Towson University (2009-2010) and is published on that program's website. 

• Here you can find a review I wrote of Irina Keruchenko's production of Vasily Sigarev's Phantom Pains at Teatr.doc in Moscow in 2005.

• This short essay is extracted from an introduction that I wrote to a book that was never published. It provides brief information about the poet and playwright Viktor Korkiya, and discusses his play Hamlet.ru in specific. 

• I wrote this piece about Kama Ginkas for the newspaper/program that the A.R.T. put out in connection with Ginkas's production of Lady with a Lapdog in 2003. 

• I wrote this brief piece about the brilliant photographer Ken Reynolds in connection with an exhibit of his photos accompanying Kama Ginkas's production of Lady with a Lapdog in 2003.

​

​

MISCELLANEOUS PERSONAL AND RUSSIAN LANGUAGE
 I don't usually link to my defunct Moscow Times web columns here. But I have a special place in my heart for one piece which was prompted by a concert of Bob Baldori in Moscow and led me to consider American music, Russian theater, Van Morrison, Chuck Berry, Pyotr Fomenko, Kama Ginkas and many others all in one.

• Pavel Podkladov published this interview with my wife Oksana and me in the Kultura newspaper on March 17, 2011. Mostly we discuss our work in the summer of 2010 at Double Edge Theatre in Ashfield, MA, but Oksana also talks about her work on Broadway and her new recent shows in Moscow. IN RUSSIAN.

• This interview done by Ilmira Bolotyan ran in the Contemporary Dramaturgy triquarterly and mostly concerns the Russian drama season I helped devise at Towson University in 2009-2010. IN RUSSIAN.

• Ksenia Larina did this general interview with me in Russian about life and theater in June 2002 on the great Ekho Moskvy station. IN RUSSIAN.