Lev Abramovich Dodin (Director) was born in 1944 in Siberia, where his mother had been evacuated during World War II. He began studying theater as a child at the Leningrad Young Viewers' Theatre directed by Matvey Grigorievich Dubrovin. Immediately after graduating high school he entered the Leningrad Theatre Institute and studied under the famous theater director and teacher, Boris Vulfovich Zon.

Mr. Dodin's debut as a director came in 1966 with the televised performance of First Love, based on the story by Ivan Turgenev. Directing credits include: It’s a Family Affair—We’ll Settle It Ourselves (Leningrad Young Viewers' Theatre); The Minor and Rosa Berndt (Leningrad Theatre of Drama and Comedy); A Gentle Creature with Oleg Borisov (Bolshoi Drama Theater and Chekhov Moscow Art Theatre); The Golovlev Family with Innokenty Smoktunovsky (Chekhov Moscow Art Theatre); Bankrupt (Finnish National Theatre); the opera Elektra with Claudio Abbado (Salzburg Festival); Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District (Florence Musical May festival); The Queen of Spades with Semen Bychkov (Amsterdam, Florence and Paris); Mazepa with Mstislav Rostropovich (Scala in Milan); and The Demon with Valery Gergiev (Opera Chatelet in Paris).

Lev Dodin became the Maly Drama Theatre's artistic director in 1983. Maly Drama directing credits include: The Robber, The House, Brothers and Sisters, Lord of the Flies, Stars in the Morning Sky, Gaudeaumus, The Possessed, Love under the Elms, Claustrophobia, The Cherry Orchard, A Play with No Name, Chevengur, and Uncle Vanya.

In 1992 the Maly Drama Theatre, and Lev Dodin, were invited to join the Union of Theatres of Europe. In 1998 Dodin's Maly Drama company was the third theater granted Theatre of Europe status, after the Odeon in Paris and the Piccolo in Milan. Lev Dodin is a member of the General Assembly of the Union of Theatres of Europe.

In 1967 Dodin began teaching acting and directing. He is currently a professor and the chair of the stage direction department at the Saint Petersburg Academy of Theatrical Arts. Lev Dodin has raised many generations of actors and directors, and has taught master classes at theater schools in Great Britain, France, Japan and the USA.

Mr. Dodin's directing and shows have won many state and international prizes and awards, including state prizes of Russia and the USSR, the Triumph Independent Prize, Golden Mask National Awards and a Laurence Olivier Award. In 2000 he was presented the European Theatre Award. In 2001 he received a Russian Presidential Award.

David Borovsky (1934-2006, Set Design) began working as an artist in Kiev with the Lesya Ukrainka Russian Drama Theatre. He designed sets for Shostakovich's Katerina Izmailova at the Taras Shevchenko Theatre of Opera and Ballet, then worked with director Leonid Varpakhovsky at the Chekhov Moscow Art Theatre and the Maly Drama Theatre. Theater and opera collaborations with director Lev Dodin include: Lord of the Flies, Molly Sweeney, Uncle Vanya, and King Lear (Maly Drama Theatre); Elektra (Salzburg Festival); Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District (Florence Musical May Festival); Queen of Spades (Amsterdam, Florence and Paris); Mazepa (Scala in Milan); Demon (Chatelet) and Salome (Opera Bastille in Paris). Other set design credits include: Alive (the play was staged in 1968 but was banned until its first public performance in 1989), Mother, Hamlet, The House on the Embankment, The Intersection, Crime and Punishment, Master and Margarita, The Dawns are Quiet Here, Vladimir Vysotsky, Believe, Comrade, among others. Mr. Borovsky was awarded numerous Russian and international awards, including the Russian State Prize and the Triumph Independent Prize. Mr. Borovsky also holds gold medals from the Russian Arts Academy, the Prague Quarenialle, and the Yugoslav Trienialle, and is a People's Artist of Russia recipient.

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