Week One

We arrived Sunday, March 1, and were given that afternoon to rest and get acquainted with the area around our dorm.
On Monday we took a bus tour of Moscow. We only got off the bus twice: once at the Kremlin and once at the Novodevichy Convent. Both sights were stunning; I want to go back to each of them and go inside when I have more time. After the bus tour we went to the American Studio at MXAT (that’s the abbreviation for the Moscow Art Theatre — everyone calls it “mhat”) where we toured the facilities and had an orientation session.


On Tuesday we started classes. Our first class was the perfect introduction to MXAT: we had drama history with the dean of the MXAT School, Anatoly Smeliansky, in a room full of portraits of Russian theatre practitioners. As Anatoly taught, on the wall behind him were Stanislavski, Nemirovich-Danchenko, Anton Chekhov, Gorki, and Tolstoy. Not only was the room full of portraits, but the entire floor was. Anatoly called it the Moscow Art Theatre Family and, with the exception of those who have come and gone from those walls due to their falling in and out of favor with political movements, every dead MXAT artist has his picture there. Semliansky told us stories about some of the pictures, saying that there were interesting stories in every one of them. Theatre here is so rich in history, so strongly linked with the history of the country, and so highly regarded as a great resource full of cultural value. It seems so different from the US.



Other classes I had this week were: ballet, voice, rhythm, movement, singing, fencing, and suzuki.

We had rehearsals every evening this week for Pushkin’s Little Tragedies which we open on Tuesday, March 11. We rehearsed it a lot in Cambridge, but now that we’re here in a new space there are a lot of adjustments to be made. Once the rehearsal period is over, we start our acting classes in which we will be doing Chekhov and Ovtrovsky scenes.

Outside of class and rehearsal there is not much to blog about—we don’t have much time out side of class and rehearsal. After one week I can already feel my Russian improving greatly. I get most of my practice ordering food (usually at the MXAT cafeteria, of which I am a big fan—so far my favorite food is borsch).

I think I’ll be writing every Sunday because that is our day off. So until next Sunday, dasvedanya!