Penza, 20 July 2015. PenzaNews. The expert council of the state contest of modern drama play under the provision of the Russian Ministry of Culture has approved the application of the regional Lunacharsky Drama Theater for the play “The Left-Hand Path” after the script of Olga Mikhaylova, a co-founder of “Theater.doc.”

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The Penza audience first got acquainted with the play about Elizaveta Alexeevna Arsenyeva, the grandmother of the famous Russian poet Mikhail Lermontov, during the modern drama play laboratory at the All-Russian Lermontov play festival “Masquerade.”

“We held a reading led by the actor Artem Samokhin on the second stage of the Drama Theater on October 6, 2014. The event involved the Distinguished Artists Galina Repnaya and Natalya Starovoyt, Artem Tikhomirov and Ilya Kochetkov. The artistic director of the festival and the famous theater critic from Moscow Grigory Zaslavsky back then called this reading one of the best he had ever seen,” the speaker stressed.

He explained that the “full-scale” play will also feature Galina Repnaya as Elizaveta Alexeevna Arsenyeva, while the rest of the actor list and the name of the stage director will go public later.

“Following the procurement document, the play ‘The Left-Hand Path’ must premiere by October 31, 2015. The funds for the play will be allocated from the federal budget,” Vitaly Sokolov clarified.

He also reminded that the Penza Drama Theater already scored a victory in such contest in 2014, when the received grant was used to stage a play “Is it easy to get married in Penza?” after the documentary script by Elena Isaeva.