WHEN SHE WAS A LITTLE BOY

Idea — Mikhail Bartenev and Oleg Loevsky
Text — Mikhail Bartenev
Based on the performance by Ray Nusselein
Director — Alexander Ogarev
Artist — Olga Pashayeva
Actors — Margarita Shilova, Alexandrina Meretskaya

Official site
Duration – 1 hour
Recommended age — 6+

In terms of form, this performance is a fascinating lesson from the theater — the art of the main issues and wild imagination. Any good performance awakens an imagination in its audience, but in our performance it does half the work. We have an adult actress playing a boy, a usual black box is going through a metamorphosis, and a little black hall turns into a space of our life. In addition, our performance is also a humanity lesson. It teaches children to put together and firmly keep memories of joy and grief, as they develop us. After all, the tears shed by us and the memories of them make us who we are. Our performance is a greeting to the legendary Dutchman Ray Nusselein. Thirty years ago, Ray came to Russia with the play «The box on the balcony». Not only children were amazed by it, but also adults. The theater formed from a trust-based story and a game with objects. The playwright Mikhail Bartenev and the director Anatoly Praudin produced the play «Hello, Ray!» based on this performance at the Samara Theater of the Young Spectator — “SamArt”. The actress Margarita Shilova and the author of the play Mikhail Bartenev connect him with the new Moscow version.
The performance got a special children’s jury prize and a special critics prize for director at the Children’s theatre festival “I am small!” (Novy Urengoy, Russia, 2018).

The Meyerhold Theatre Centre is an open area for theater teams.

The artists of different directions create cross-genre productions on the STAGE-TRANSFORMER.  Our residents are The July Ensemble, the Moscow Ensemble of Modern Music, the Workshop of Dmitry Brusnikin, the Creative Union 9, the Theater «Snark», the Antique Circus, etc.

WE LOVE TO BREAK RULES: to play in the lobby, under the stairs, or even in all places of our centre at the same time.

The performances are created in the residence BLACK BOX — the competition of projects. There are six presentations of the play. After that, it is changed by another novelty. At the end of the premiere cycle, the play can be in the repertoire. But this happens in exceptional cases (for example, a great success among viewers).