In the autumn of 1918, the Bolshoi Drama Theatre was founded in Petrograd on the initiative of the writer Maxim Gorky, the poet Alexander Blok and the Moscow Art Theatre actress Maria Andreyeva. The theatre’s repertoire policy was determined by its first artistic director, Alexander Blok: “The Bolshoi Drama Theatre is, by design, a theatre of high drama: high tragedy and high comedy”. The special aesthetics and style of the BDT were formed under the influence of the architect Vladimir Shchuko and artists from the “World of Art” association: Alexandre Benois, Mstislav Dobuzhinsky, Boris Kustodiev – the first set designers of the theatre.

On February 15, 1919, the premiere of F. Schiller’s tragedy “Don Carlos”, directed by Andrei Lavrentiev, took place here. Among the BDT’s directors of the following years were: V. Meyerhold’s student Konstantin Tverskoy, V. Nemirovich-Danchenko’s student Nikolai Petrov, “World of Art” artist Alexandre Benois, actor Boris Babochkin (the famous Chapaev from the film of the same name). From 1932 to 1992, the BDT bore the name of its founder, Maxim Gorky.

In 1956, Georgy Tovstonogov was appointed chief director and artistic director of the theatre. Under his leadership, the BDT became the creator’s theatre, known all over the world, and the best drama stage in the USSR. Tatiana Doronina and Sergei Yursky, Innokenty Smoktunovsky and Zinaida Sharko, Evgeny Lebedev and Valentina Kovel, Oleg Basilashvili and Svetlana Kryuchkova, Vladislav Strzhelchik, Pavel Luspekayev, Oleg Borisov, Nikolai Trofimov, Yefim Kopelyan, Kirill Lavrov and many other wonderful actors starred in Tovstonogov’s performances. In those years, the theatre went on tour a lot. In a situation of confrontation between two political systems, during the Iron Curtain regime, the BDT was a cultural link between the East and the West. After Tovstonogov’s death in 1989, the People’s Artist of the USSR Kirill Lavrov took over the BDT’s artistic direction; after him, the director Temur Chkheidze became the head of the theatre. Since 1992, the theatre bears the name of Georgy Aleksandrovich Tovstonogov.

In 2013, director Andrey Moguchy, one of the leaders of the theatrical avant-garde, became the artistic director of the BDT. Under his leadership, the Bolshoi Drama Theatre regained recognition from the public and critics, and became one of the main theatrical newsmakers in the country. In December 2015, the theatre was awarded by the experts of the Russian Association of Theatre Critics “For building a new artistic strategy for the Bolshoi Drama Theatre”.

The creative credo of the BDT is an open dialogue on topics relevant to modern society. Each performance and each project of the new BDT addresses the problems of an individual of this day and age.

The productions of the Bolshoi Drama Theatre involve the troupe’s artists of all generations – from very young actors of the trainee group to the leading stage masters, such as People’s Artist of the USSR Alisa Freindlich, People’s Artist of Russia and Ukraine Valery Ivchenko, People’s Artists of Russia Svetlana Kryuchkova, Irutė Vengalite, Marina Ignatova, Elena Popova, People’s Artists of Russia Gennady Bogachev, Valery Degtyar, Honored Artists of Russia Anatoly Petrov, Vasily Reutov, Andrey Sharkov, Honored Artist of Russia Maria Lavrova and others. Every season, the BDT performances become laureates of the main theatrical awards of the country, including the national theatre award “The Golden Mask”.

Since 2013, the BDT named after G.A. Tovstonogov has been implementing a large-scale educational program “The Age of Enlightenment”. It includes lectures, concerts, exhibitions, round tables dedicated to topical creative issues, meetings with people who shape modern theatre, excursions around the museum and the backstage of the theatre, authors programs dedicated to the history of the BDT. An important direction of “The Age of Enlightenment” is the “BDT Pedagogical Laboratory”: directors, actors, theatre critics and tutors educate teachers of local secondary schools and kindergartens to introduce modern theatrical language and stage techniques into the school educational program.

In 2015, the Bolshoi Drama Theatre became the first Russian repertory drama theatre to permanently integrate the inclusive performance “The Language of Birds”, created jointly with the Center for Creativity, Education and Social Habilitation for Adults with Autism “Anton Tut Ryadom”. People with autism spectrum disorders perform in this play side by side with professional actors.

The Bolshoi Drama Theatre named after G.A. Tovstonogov has three stages. The Main Stage (750 seats) and the Small Stage (120 seats) are located in a historic building at 65 Fontanka Embankment, built in 1878 by the architect Ludwig Fontana by order of Count Anton Apraksin. The Second Stage of the BDT (300 seats) is located on 13 Old Theatre Square, in the building of the Kamennoostrovsky Theatre, the oldest surviving wooden theatre in Russia, built by the architect Smaragd Shustov by order of Emperor Nicholas I in 1827. Each season, at least 5 premieres and more than 350 performances are released at these three venues.