Venue: Lensovet Theatre
Address: 191025, Санкт-Петербург, Владимирский пр, д. 12
Town: Saint Petersburg, RU

Lensovet Theatre, officially Saint Petersburg State Academic Lensoviet Theatre (in Russian: Санкт-Петербургский академический театр имении Ленсовета, literally St Petersburg Academic Theater of the Leningrad City Council), also known as Lensovet Academic Theatre and Lensoviet Theatre, is a theatre and theatrical troupe in Saint Petersburg, Russia. The resident company was founded as the New Theatre in 1933, under V. E. Meyerhold student Isaac (Isaak) Kroll. As government repression arose against "Meyerholdism" in the mid-1930s, Kroll was dismissed and actor, director and teacher Boris Mikhailovich Sushkevich appointed. Sushkevich brought his disciples with him to the company. It was later renamed Leningrad Soviet Theatre. The troupe's first home was in a building acquired by the Lensovet on Nevsky Prospekt, which formerly housed a Dutch church; however, this was destroyed by fire. In 1936 the city authorities gave the city council a new premises on Rubinshteina Street (which now houses a children's theatre, Through the Looking Glass). When Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, most of the theatre troupe (then New Theatre), was on tour in the Soviet Far East; the others joined them there to escape the siege of Leningrad by the Germans. They returned in 1945, moving into their current location at 12 Vladimirski Prospekt. Sushkevich died a year later, after which there was a frequently changing succession of artistic directors. Under Nikolay Akimov, who served from around 1949 to 1955, new actors were brought in and the repertoire was updated. The first Soviet musical, Spring in Moscow, by Viktor Gusev, was staged. In 1953 the theatre was renamed. The name derives from Leningrad Council of People Deputies, or Lensovet, which was succeeded by the Legislative Assembly of Saint Petersburg in 1994. In 1960, Igor Petrovich Vladimirov, a student of Georgy Tovstonogov, took up the post as director, where he remained until his death in 1996. During his time there he o