Yekaterinburg Hosted the Kolyada-Plays International Theater Festival
The XVI edition of the International Theater Festival Kolyada-Plays took place in Yekaterinburg, running from June 20 to June 30, 2023. The event gathered a diverse group of theater makers, actors, and playwrights from across the region, and the city’s cultural scene buzzed with performances, conversations, and creative exchanges. Local media provided extensive coverage, highlighting the festival’s impact on the city’s artistic calendar and its role in promoting new voices in drama.
Throughout the festival, performances were staged at several notable venues in Yekaterinburg. The program featured shows at the Kolyada Theater, the Chamber Theater, the Sverdlovsk Children’s Philharmonic Ensemble, the Nutcracker Ballet Theatre, the Sverdlovsk Musical Comedy Theater, the Yekaterinburg Puppet Theater, and the EGTI Educational Theater. The spread across multiple venues underscored the festival’s breadth, inviting audiences to experience a range of formats—from intimate chamber pieces to larger-scale productions and family-friendly performances.
The lineup drew participants from a broad geographic spectrum, including Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Tatarstan, Bashkortostan, Barnaul, Kirov, Magadan, Shadrinsk, Noyabrsk, Kemerovo, Kurgan, Novgorod, the Perm Territory, Chelyabinsk, Penza, Izhevsk, Omsk, Vologda, Moscow, Taganrog, and Zelenodolsk. The festival’s artistic director, Nikolai, shared his reflections on social media, noting that many performances came from the works of his students and from plays associated with the Ural School of Drama. He emphasized that the festival functions as a laboratory for emerging Ural playwrights, and that it prioritizes nurturing younger voices within the regional literary and performing arts community.
In addition to the festival’s dramatic offerings, audience members were treated to a broader cinematic experience as part of a related program. Earlier reports detailed a separate event where 100 films from 10 countries were showcased at the Zerkalo festival, illustrating the region’s commitment to cross-cultural storytelling and interdisciplinary artistic dialogue. These parallel events enriched the cultural landscape, providing viewers with opportunities to engage with both live theater and cinema in a coherent, art-forward environment.